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Use of (or misuse of) <H> tags

         

crobb305

10:59 am on Jun 17, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



The manipulation of <H> tags using CSS has been discussed here before. I have resized my <H2> tags to make them more appealing, but I am wondering if Google has penalized me for this. Do any of you feel you may have been penalized for doing this? Anyone still have very high rankings using manipulated <H> tags?

Thanks

Travoli

3:00 pm on Jun 17, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I have never been penalized for this. As far as I am aware, lots of people use this technique with great results. I would look to other possibilities for problems.

g1smd

3:09 am on Jun 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Use the heading tags only on text that is a heading.

Run the code through [validator.w3.org...] but make sure you tick the boxes for "Show Source" and "Verbose Output", but especially tick the box for "Show Outline" as well.

On the results page, scroll down through the error list (if there is one) and look for the section marked "Document Outline". If the list there does not look like a summary of your document then you are abusing the tag.

spud01

1:19 pm on Jun 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



g1smd,

Use the heading tags only on text that is a heading.

It sounds so obvious, but true.

So will having a whole page of text with a heading thats has <h1> tags and the rest of the body <h4> lets say, will that be a bad thing.

Has the new algo shown any signs that it frawns on sites that abusive the <hx> tags?

rfgdxm1

1:31 pm on Jun 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I would guess there would be no penalty unless on a hand review someone at Google thought whatever was being done was overtly abusive. Not reasonable to consider use of CSS this way is 100% proof of trying to cheat search engines. This sort of thing has inncocent usages.

ncsuk

1:32 pm on Jun 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



You should try and use them in moderation as its not just the spiders who will think it is ugly and over excessive but your potencial clients and site visitors will not appreciate it either.

You can of course get around this by using CSS and making everything look the same size as your body text (which is highly unethical) and this would solve the problem.

That is a discussion for a different forum however.

In regards to your original question I would imagine if Google sees a whole page of head tags then it is going to become slightly suspicious. I would say you should have no more that 10% of a page in head tags, not just because of the logistics, rankings etc but also because of cross browser / CSS compatibility which could cause problems.

shaadi

1:33 pm on Jun 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Use of (or misuse of) <H> tags

Should have been:

(Ab)Use of <H> tags

g1smd

11:10 pm on Jun 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Umm, your page should look something like this:

<body>

<h1>Main Heading</h1>

<h2>Next-Level-Down Heading</h2>

<p>body content</p>

<p>body content</p>

<h3>Lower-Level Heading</h3>

<p>body content</p>

<h2>Next-Level-Down Heading</h2>

<p>body content</p>

<h3>Lower-Level Heading</h3>

<p>body content</p>

<p>body content</p>

<h2>Next-Level-Down Heading</h2>

<h3>Lower-Level Heading</h3>

<p>body content</p>

<h3>Lower-Level Heading</h3>

<p>body content</p>

<h3>Lower-Level Heading</h3>

<p>body content</p>

<p>body content</p>

</body>

That example shows the document structure, and that is exactly what heading and paragraph tags are for -- showing structure.

skipfactor

11:36 pm on Jun 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



This sort of thing has inncocent usages.

True, before I knew any better, I was using H2s in CSS small-type paragraphs because it made the font spacing nicer & I was in a hurry and too lazy to replicate it w/ CSS adjustment.

markdidj

11:47 pm on Jun 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



My site has been up and down and out of the G index, moving massively each month. I am no where near top for my "widget", and neither did I expect to be. After my ban, site cleanup and manual check by G I became top for "animated widget" and "widget tutorials", my rightful place as, sorry for being pig-headed, it is the best on the web.

Now I have been moved somewhere near the bottom, which is going to cause a problem if the big sites with "widgets" sees my "animated widget" while it's top and decides it would be good for their site, take the idea and workings, and get the links.

I created an Iframe "animated widget" that people can add to their sites as a link to mine. I put this on my homepage, which is the only thing I've changed. Now I have been dropped once again to a very low PR.

As far as I can see there are two things that might be affecting my index, one is the iFrame. The other is a javascript applied transparent gif pic that goes over a H1. All of the H1 can be seen, and this part passed the manual check after the previous ban.

Does G now read and execute JS? If they do, then the algo would have picked up the image in front of the H1.

Would a small iFrame affect my rankings? both my homepage and the "animated widget" iFrame have been validated.

any help greatly appreciated.

LukasS

2:07 am on Jun 19, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I have on my site with logos and ringtones to mobiles big iframe and i'm in top of serps under phrases that i wanted to be...

So i think that iframe is not a problem...

gniland

2:54 am on Jun 19, 2003 (gmt 0)



It has become a common practice on the web to use a css file to manipulate the h tags on a page. I have seen a six sentence paragraph labeled with a h1 tag manipulated to look like normal text.

I am curious what is the most extreme case of h tag manipulation you have come across?