anyone nervous about multiple H2's on the same page?

[plasma800]

I mean, what if it's really logical..

Any bad effects on SEO as follows?

H1 = WIDGETS

H2 = Blue Widgets
widg
widg
widg
widg

H2= Red Widgets
widg
widg
widg

H2 = Green Widgets
widg
widg
widg

[trillianjedi]

Hi plasma,

That is actually the correct use of H2 tags. What makes you think it might be a problem?

TJ

[Ma2T]

Good good, that's how I have things right now, i'm glad that's the correct way.

I think we should worry about using multiple H1 tags though, correct?

[tedster]

Multiple H1 tags in your mark-up is valid html, but it's pretty weird in terms of information architecture.

Back in the days of serious H1 tag abuse, people thought the H1 element was a magic bullet for ranking. They wrapped it around all sorts of junk -- to the point where Google couldn't even use H1 as a relevance signal for a while and they just indexed it as plain text! So these days it's best not to play around with H1 and instead make sure you are sending the search engines a clean and clear relevance signal when you do use it.

Here's my SOP - and it gets good results for me with Google. If I think a page needs two H1 tags, then I have one of the following situations:

1. I really need two pages.

2. Those two tags should really be H2 tags, and there is an implicit "main" heading for the page that I need to notice, make explicit, an put into an H1 tag.

[BillyS]

The H1 - H6 tags should be used as an indicator of importance with H1 representing the most important. I would think that multiple H1 might be considered "bad form."

H2 I use for each different subtopic I'm discussing on that same page (and sometimes there are several).
H3 used to support the H2 subtopic or even label a table.

It's all about hierarchy. ;)

[BillyS]

Here’s an example of how I would use these tags…

Dogs – H1

Working Dogs – H2

Rottweilers – H3
Feeding of Rottweilers – H4
Breeding Rottweilers – H4

Mastiffs – H3
Feeding of Mastiffs – H4
Breeding Mastiffs – H4

Terriers – H2

Bull Terriers – H3
Feeding of Bull Terriers – H4
Breeding Bull Terriers – H4

Airedale Terriers – H3
Feeding of Airedale Terriers – H4
Breeding Airedale Terriers – H4

[g1smd]

Heading tags are for ... headings. You should have multiple h2, and lower, tags on each page.

Run your page through [validator.w3.org...] and tick the box for "Show Outline".

On the results page scroll down to the section marked "Outline" and examine the bullet-point list.

If the items in the list do not represent a summary of your page, showing the structure of the markup then you are creating spam.

[jtara]

I don't know why anybody would think that multiple H1 tags is "bad form".

H1 is NOT a page title. That's what <title> is for!

If you say you should only have one H1 - then perhaps books should be written with one chapter, outlines, with only one top-level item, catalogs with only one section, newspapers with only one section, supermarkets with only one isle.

PERHAPS it is appropriate - in a particular instance - to divide text that falls under a top-level heading into seperate pages. Or perhaps not. It depends on what you are organizing and how much text there is to organize.

[tedster]

Here's a recommendation from the W3C

Use <h1> for top-level heading

<h1> is the HTML element for the first-level heading of a document:
If the document is basically stand-alone, for example Things to See and Do in Geneva, the top-level heading is probably the same as the title.

If it is part of a collection, for example a section on Dogs in a collection of pages about pets, then the top level heading should assume a certain amount of context; just write <h1>Dogs</h1> while the title should work in any context: Dogs - Your Guide to Pets.

[www-mit.w3.org...]

This recommendation from the W3C caused some debate a while back. There were people who felt that making title=H1 was incurring an "over-optimization penalty" from Google. I never saw that one myself.

Here's another W3C Reference:

Headings: H1 ... H6

The six heading elements, H1 through H6, denote section headings. Although the order and occurrence of headings is not constrained by the HTML DTD, documents should not skip levels (for example, from H1 to H3)

[w3.org...]

Having done some more research, my own viewpoint is still as I said above. If the goal is to give a maximally clear "signal of relevance" to Google (and this is, after all, a Google Search forum thread) then I can confirm that limiting H1 to a single occurance per html document has brought search engine success.

Not a "law", no -- but a potential help in getting traffic from Google search results.

[g1smd]

In ISO HTML a document is not valid if heading levels are skipped.

The HTML 4.01 specification and W3C validator is less strict in that respect.

[Leosghost]

note for "newbs" ..who may hit this thread by accident ( and at the time of my posting this comment ..it's still fresh and warm and not on page one ..although I would recommend that it be there ..subeject matter is important as are the posters opinions above mine ..admins cut this post if you do and I wont be offended in the least ..;-) ..read it ..think ..read it again ..think some more ;-)
..