h1 tag below other content

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h1 tag below other content

Is there a problem with this

Aberdeen

2:53 am on Sep 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

The team of designers who are in charge of our web site will not modify the main area of our index page and so I am having to tag on some general paragraphs on the bottom to catch the keywords, but what happens if I put an h1 tag quite far down the page. I always thought the h1 tag should be at the top of the page. It will be the only h1 tag though.

Is there any chance that by placing a h1 tag so far down the page below content, this could have a negative effect.

Cheers

SFReader

12:28 pm on Sep 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

Several people have suggested that Google doesn't like this.

Let me nudge your question back up to the top.

Nikke

4:45 pm on Sep 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

What about doing it with CSS divisions? Add it in the top of the code but display it at the bottom...

roodle

7:48 pm on Sep 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

I'd be interested to know about this.

Common sense tells me that there should only be one h1 tag on the page and somewhere near the top (though I presume not necessarily the first item after the <body> tag) I usually just use h2 tags and css to add more, perhaps equally important headings anywhere below.

edd1

8:40 pm on Sep 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

We've always done fine by adding h2 tags further down. One h1 at the top and some h2s to break up the sections.

stargeek

8:41 pm on Sep 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

I've never noticed any serious problems with h1's all over and the same with the other header tags, but I'll look at some pages and make some changes and see what happens.

Romster

9:26 am on Sep 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

Logically thinking it would be 100% for H1 to be in the middle of the text.

- take a traditional website made with TABLES. Header + On the left you have MENUS and say some NEWS + in the middle H1 and CONTENT and on the right you have some more links and text.

This traditional layout would place the H1 in the MIDDLE or if the content text on that page is small the H1 would be below the middle of the TEXT

BUT it isn't causing any problems for any of my sites.

---

Google most likely notices that on the left (HTML TOP) there is a menu that repeats.

BobSco

10:46 am on Sep 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

I've got 5 web sites up and running.

Doing well in the SERPS.

Recently I changed to using CSS. I've put H1 tags all over the place(3-4 / pg) and not noticed any adverse effects. Gone up a few positions on some pages. So maybe that traditional stuff doesn't come into it. But who knows what happens on the next update.

BobSco

kaled

12:23 pm on Sep 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

The main index page of my site is, strangely enough, an index. Each entry uses a single H1 tag. I don't expect to get many hits on this page, instead I expect to get hits on inner pages, nevertheless, my main index page does quite well for some searches.

There are currently eight H1 tags on this page with no apparent ill-effects.

Kaled.

CygnusX1

1:14 pm on Sep 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

To my understanding, your only allowed to use one set of "H1" tags per pages, and it should be the first set of "H" tags for your main heading. All other headings should be H2 unless you get more detailed about the subject in which case H3, H4, H5, and H6 tags are used.

stargeek

1:23 pm on Sep 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

" To my understanding, your only allowed to use one set of "H1" tags per pages, and it should be the first set of "H" tags for your main heading"

Where are you understanding this from, HTML standards or some SEO observations?

kaled

1:33 pm on Sep 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

You're allowed to do anything you want with html. How search engines behave is entirely up to them. I could just as easily have used all h2 tags or h3 tags and used CSS to achieve the same visual effect. However, had I done so, there would not have been a single h1 on the page - I dare say some html nazi would criticize or predict dire search engine consequences had I done that.

The only use of h tags that is likely to get you into trouble with search engines is using them for keyword spam. Trying to perform complex contextual analysis is a waste of CPU power (by search engines). If they don't like multiple h1 tags all they have to do is treat all but the first as h2 (or p tags, etc.) - easy.

Kaled.

roodle

5:11 pm on Sep 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

Romster, I have to disagree with you. Many sites these days are laid out without tables (thank God), in which case there's no problem with having the h1 somewhere at the top of the code. I'm sure I've read in several places that h1 should contain the main overall title of the page, and there should only be one on each page. Whether that is with regard to Google's "preferences" or W3 standards I can't remember. Personally I go with an h1 which is as descriptive and keywordy (not spammy) as possible, and then straight on to h2 for other minor titles.

I also agree with kaled that it's probably not a negative thing to put more than one h1 on a page at any point in the content, though I've no proof of this, nor of the contrary!