Use of H1 tags for Google SEO please explain.

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Use of H1 tags for Google SEO please explain.

born2run

10:01 am on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

Hi,

I have come across quite a few recommendations advocating use of H1 tags in the articles.

I run a news site. I need help on how to implement H1 tags for seo purposes.

Can anyone please explain how to implement h1 tags on your website for google seo? Thanks a lot in advance as always!

aakk9999

11:36 am on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

Are you saying you are not using <h1> at the moment? Or are you saying that you are using <h1> but that you want to change them for "seo purpose" ?

born2run

11:48 am on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

I'm not using <h1> tag. Thanks!

born2run

12:24 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

HI also, all my title tags are within <h2> tags. Is this good or bad for SEO? should I change them to <h1> ? Please assist. Thanks

not2easy

12:35 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

You don't mean that you have <h2> tags within your <title> tags, right? You mean that you are using <h2> tags for the tiles of your pages within the <body> of your html, correct?

aristotle

12:42 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

a few years ago I started using <h2> instead of <h1> for the main top header because <h1> titles can look too big and out of proportion in some browsers, depending on the settings. But I didn't change the <h1> tags already on my older articles because I don't like to make changes to titles and headers after the articles already have good rankings.

Anyway, I don't think it makes much difference at all for SEO. If your old articles already have good rankings, I wouldn't change them if it was me.

Edit: P.S. I should have mentioned that some browsers ignore css styling of <h1>, <h2. etc.

born2run

1:26 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

No I don't have h2 tags within the title tags

My h2 tags are in the body section of the html code

Should I change all these h2 to h1 ?

netmeg

1:36 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

It's probably more correct coding, but it's not likely to make a noticeable difference for SEO.

(If it were that easy, everyone would do it and it wouldn't work anymore. Oh wait...)

not2easy

1:40 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

<h1> is for the Heading of a document or page, <h2> is for sub-heading or subtitle, <h3> is for heading of sections and so on through the page. The importance of the <h1> tags is that they should indicate the topic of the page. If you do use <h2> but not <h1> it can be confusing for bots.

born2run

1:50 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

So should I change all h2 to h1? Some contrasting opinions here

aristotle

2:00 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

So should I change all h2 to h1? Some contrasting opinions here

Well I still try to stick to a basic rule that if an old article already has good rankings, don't make any changes to it without a really good reason. In my opinion that rule over-rides most other rules.

born2run

2:21 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

Problem is my google search traffic has declined and I am trying to fix mistakes in my site Would it harm my search rankings if I changed the h2 tag to h1 ?

aristotle

2:51 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

I think you're barking up the wrong tree if you believe that something as minor as this is the main cause of any traffic declines.

Wilburforce

3:11 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

I think you're barking up the wrong tree if you believe that something as minor as this is the main cause of any traffic declines.

I agree, but it sounds as if the site could do with a general overhaul.

Whatever changes you make, you don't want it to look to Google like SEO (which could be catastrophic), but putting page headings in H1 is good practice. If there are other things you can do that are also good practice it might be time to have a thorough look at everything.

As long as it doesn't look like SEO it is unlikely to do any harm, but it is also unlikely to make much difference to ranking or traffic.

piatkow

3:18 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

Before I discovered CSS I used an h2 at the head of a page for stylistic reasons and it failed to rank as it should for its specialist niche keywords. When I changed it to a styled h1 it started ranking consistently in the top 5.

I imagine that people who have difficulty over headings have never had to produce printed reports or manuals. Once you start laying out a document on paper with numbered headings it becomes obvious. 1.0. 2.0 etc are h1 while 1.1, 1.2, 2.1 etc are h2.

aristotle

3:36 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

piatkow --
I don't doubt your observations, but I have a hard time believing that Google's algorithm gives significantly higher rankings to pages simply because they use <h1> rather than <h2> as the main top header of a page. Is that more important than relevance, quality, backlinks, user behavior, etc? I can't imagine that the algorithm would give that much importance to such a minor factor.

aakk9999

3:47 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

Before I discovered CSS

Just wondering how many years ago this was? Landscape changed...

not2easy

6:04 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

I have seen Bing complain about improper (non-standard) use of headings tags (in their BWT SEO check), I've never seen that in GWT. I have read that Google doesn't like to see <hn> tags used in place of css, meaning where you should use <strong> or <b> you use a <h5> or <h6>, but it could take me days to find the source for that factlet, it is not recent.

FranticFish

6:20 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

I can't imagine that the algorithm would give that much importance to such a minor factor.

Agree 100%. BUT - it's such an easy signal to get right, so whether it's infinitesimal or non-existent does that matter?

In my experience, on-page stuff is the cumulative result of lots of little factors that contribute. It's silly not to go for quick wins and follow best practice.

lucy24

7:49 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

because <h1> titles can look too big and out of proportion in some browsers

Er, Aristotle, have your page designs been the same since 1998? Sounds as if you're due for an overhaul in any case.

I was late learning CSS; I was only pushed into it when I started doing ebooks. That was around January 2005, meaning
:: counting on fingers ::
ten years ago.

Idle query: Would a search engine rather see multiple <h1> on a single page, or none at all?

aristotle

8:18 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

Well Lucy -- In my first post I mentioned that some browsers ignore css styling in <h> tags. At least that was the case several years ago when I decided to start using <h2> instead of <h1>. In fact I use css styling quite a bit, but if any browsers ignore it, I think <h2> is a better size than <h1>.

lucy24

10:02 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

some browsers ignore css styling in <h> tags

You horrify me. Any further information? I assume you're not talking about specific features like {display: run-in;} which to this day Firefox won't do. But there would be loud complaints if it ignored directives about size or weight.

aristotle

10:21 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

Lucy -- Some of the early Android tablet browsers were very primitive. I remember trying out about half a dozen of them and then having to uninstall them because they were so bad. I can't remember their names now, since it was a few years ago, although it seems like the Opera Mini Lightweight was still having problems with <h> tags only about a year ago. But i don't still have those tablets, so I can't do any checking. However, if you want a current example, the only one I know of is (believe it or not) the latest Internet Explorer when used in high-contrast accessability mode.

Wilburforce

10:44 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

Internet Explorer when used in high-contrast accessability mode

For the sort of visual impairment that would make someone use that mode, H1 probably does need to be that big. That doesn't seem to me to be a good reason to abandon CSS or H1 for everyone else.

aristotle

10:58 pm on Dec 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

Wilburforce -- I didn't abandon CSS. I use it extensively, especially in <h> tags. The reason I use <h2> is to provide a better fallback for cases where the browser doesn't render CSS. Undoubtedly browsers have gotten better, so that there is less reason to do it that way now. But I'm not going to start changing old articles that are ranking well now.

tangor

1:39 am on Dec 20, 2014 (gmt 0)

Do your current pages have more than one h2 already?

If your change is search/replace h2 to h1 then that is NOT advised IF THERE ARE MORE THAN ONE h2 per document.

You want only ONE h1 per page, and ideally that is the TITLE of the page (not the <title></title> )

TheMadScientist

1:51 am on Dec 20, 2014 (gmt 0)

So should I change all h2 to h1? Some contrasting opinions here

No. There's really no need as long as you aren't doing something like <h2> then <h1> then <h3> then <h4>, because the only real starting point for "deciphering the web" is with the HTML docs, then "expanding" from there to allow for differences in coding.

The reason the <h2> then <h1> then <h3> then <h4> isn't something I would encourage is best explained in the HTML docs here: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/sections.html#headings-and-sections [link de-linked purposely to include the fragment-indentifier, so copy and paste].

Using an <h2> rather than an <h1> shouldn't be a big deal to search engines since they've been dealing with things along those lines for years. If there is more than one main topic on a page and an <h2> is used for the main heading, then using an <h2> for the other topical headings is what I would do, because headings of the same numerical value indicate a new "section" or new "subsection" on the same level as the previous heading of the same number, while a higher number heading indicates a subsection of the previous heading.

So, for example a page about apples and oranges with an initial heading of <h2> for apples should be followed by an <h2> for oranges, rather than an <h2> for apples and an <h3> for oranges since the <h3> indicates semantically oranges are a subtopic or subsection of apples, but they're not.

The same would apply for the use of <h1> being followed by an <h1> rather than an <h2>, when an <h1> is initially used rather than an <h2>.

Basically, changing the numerical value of a heading will *not* in-and-of itself change the importance of the text it contains or cause "better rankings", but having a document coded in a way that is semantically-understandable by an algo may.

IOW: Changing the initial heading on a page from <h2> to <h1> when there is no other heading should have no effect, but changing the second heading on a page where an <h2> is used initially from an <h3> to an <h2> may make a difference due to the semantic implication the second heading represents a new section on the same level as the first section, rather than the second "section" being a subsection or subcategory of the initial heading. See the apples and oranges info above for a better idea of what I'm saying.

<h1> is for the Heading of a document or page, <h2> is for sub-heading or subtitle, <h3> is for heading of sections and so on through the page.

Sorry, but that's inaccurate -- An <h2> indicates a subsection of content to the <h1> and an <h3> will indicate a subsection of the <h2> it follows, but an <h2> is not a "subheading" to the <h1>. Please see the docs for more info.

TheMadScientist

2:46 am on Dec 20, 2014 (gmt 0)

Let me give an example of how thinking of an <h2> as a subheading to an <h1> rather than a subsection of an <h1> could lead to SE understandability issues.

<h1>Apples and Oranges</h1>
<h2>We love fruit.</h2>
<p>Info about apples here.</p>

<h3>All About Oranges</h3>
<p>Info about oranges here.</p>

The preceding semantically says:
The page is about "Apples and Oranges".
There's a subsection to "Apples and Oranges" called "We Love Fruit".
The main section about "We Love Fruit" contains content only about apples.
There's a subsection to "We Love Fruit," which has content only about apples, called "All About Oranges".

The preceding outline makes oranges a subsection of the info about apples, rather than a topic about another fruit on the same level as the info about apples.

It would be more semantically understandable if it was coded as:

<h1>Apples and Oranges</h1>
<p>We love fruit.</p>

<h2>All About Apples</h2>
<p>Info about apples here.</p>

<h2>All About Oranges</h2>
<p>Info about oranges here.</p>

The preceding semantically says:
The page is about "Apples and Oranges".
"We love fruit" is part of the section about apples and oranges.
"All About Apples" is a subsection to the main topic of "Apples and Oranges".
"All About Oranges" is a subsection to the main topic of "Apples and Oranges" on the same level as "All About Apples".

There's a big difference in what the two preceding sets of code could say to a search engine compared to how a person would understand/interpret them -- Getting the coding right for search engines to understand what is being said is definitely part of the challenge of SEO, IMO.

born2run

5:18 am on Dec 20, 2014 (gmt 0)

I am confused. Thanks guys for the detailed info. It's all very valuable advice for which I'm grateful. But I still don't know whether to change h2 to h1 or not. Thanks!

lucy24

8:48 am on Dec 20, 2014 (gmt 0)

But I still don't know whether to change h2 to h1 or not.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

For whatever <h> is currently the highest heading-level on any given page, make sure there is only one of it on that page.

Granted, if your pages start with h3 or h4, the search engine might get confused and wonder if it's missing something. But h1 vs h2 is not worth messing with.

:: wondering if search engines are clever enough to figure out something like
/directory/ index page >> starts with h1
/directory/subdir/ index page >> starts with h2
/directory/subdir/subtwo/ index page >> starts with h3
et cetera ::

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