Can misuse of <H> lead to loss of PR?

Still in index but no PR

[Oaf357]

Okay, I confess I was trying a somewhat questionable tactic to improve rankings (but I was also using it to format text to make it more user friendly via CSS). Also know that this is the only questionable tactic I had on my entire site.

I had a few paragraphs of text on a page using H3 tags as opposed to the traditional P tag. Google picked it up (or someone tipped them off) and my PR (site wide) has been reduced to 0. It was somewhat questionable I admit but it's gone now.

Of course it could be nothing and be because of the glorious uber update.

Just figured I'd let people know to defintely scratch that off the list of SEO options. Also, since the H3 tagging has been eliminated what are my chances of getting my PR back in the next update without e-mailing Google?

[Clark]

Are you allowed to put a font tag within the h1 tag?
Say <h1><font color=green>title</font></h1>
or
<h1><font color=green size=6>title</font</h1>?

[mil2k]

Since it can be done externally (through CSS) i see no problem doing in internally .

[davewray]

Absolutely incredible....Some previous poster said that Google would "protect" those that had well designed, well laid out content sites. Well, excuse me, but not all of us are expert site designers...Nor can all of us afford some expert designer! The fact is: Surfers search for information or products and don't give a rat's ___ if your site does or doesn't look pretty. Just my 2 cents......By the way, Google doesn't care if your site looks "pretty" either....

[Harwich]

I modify my <Hx> tags, I still use them as they are meant to be used for headings, sub-headings etc.
I don't use <DIV> tags to do it though I use the class attribute of the <H> tag. In fact I never use <DIV> tags I either use the class attribute of the closest tag (<P>,<TD> or whatever) or if that won't work I use the class attribute of a <SPAN> tag. Does anyone think this makes any difference or is that an acceptable way to control the appearance of items on a page.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[jimun]

The site I work on is to promote widget accessories and our dealers that resell them. Here is how I have used the <h> tags:

1 Main Title=h1
2 shared border titles=h2
1 subtitle=h2
1 long sentence (company description)=h2 (lower on the page)

All text has <b> tag except 1 line in italics.

Currently the site is at #2 or 3 in the serps in keyphrases, should I be concerned about the usage here?

[Oaf357]

I modify my <Hx> tags, I still use them as they are meant to be used for headings, sub-headings etc.
I don't use <DIV> tags to do it though I use the class attribute of the <H> tag. In fact I never use <DIV> tags I either use the class attribute of the closest tag (<P>,<TD> or whatever) or if that won't work I use the class attribute of a <SPAN> tag. Does anyone think this makes any difference or is that an acceptable way to control the appearance of items on a page.

That's typically what I try to do. Sometimes however I have to use clasess (although I prefer not to). Your methods are totally acceptable in terms of DIV versus SPAN.

[pageoneresults]

I've been keeping my <h> clean of anything but the h! If you have to declare a different style for a specific page, then go ahead and create a class...

h1.classname{font-size:13px;color#369;background:transparent;}

The best way to use <h> tags in my opinion is like this...

<h1>Short Succinct Heading</h1>

No font tags, no class, no nothing except the html tag in its purest form.

I don't think using a font tag, class or anything else on that tag is going to matter much. The only thing I can see having an affect would be the extra code you are using to style the tag.

I'm a firm believer in providing the shortest route to visible content. The less code, the better.

[Web_Player]

As mentioned, allow access to the css file. Goggle and other engines may look at the css file to see if you are playing games. If the font color is the same as the background, Goggle will not like. Using an external css file will allow you to get away with it for a while and may require a human to look over the site.

Not sure if the css file is looked at by a human or if only the page is reviewed.

[Oaf357]

Okay. Let me pose this question.

Take a look at your logs...

Has Google or any other SE for that matter crawled your CSS file?

[Web_Player]

Oaf357

I can't prove they do or don't because I don't think a spider is intelligent enough to figure that I have placed black text on a black background - yet.

You may well be correct in that it isn't being done yet but I have a nickle that says within 6 months to a year they will be.

It took Goggle awhile to stop reading the <noframe> tags (at least that is what they claim - again no personal proof because I decided frames were not the best way to go) so I doubt the external css files will be ignored too much longer.

I suspect on-page styles are all ready being evaluated but again I can't prove it because I haven't tried to trick the spiders except with a short line of text on only one page. It could be affecting the page ranking but not enough to upset them - I hope.

[Oaf357]

Anyone else?

[berli]

Google has never requested my css files. I one of use two different css files for all my newer pages and, as far as I know, it didn't ask for them in the last deep crawl.

The other SE's (Ink, ia_archiver, etc) don't seem interested in css files either.