Modifying <H1> Tags with CSS

Will it get you banned?

[tlhmh1]

I would like to use the H1, H2, etc.. tags for headers on my website. I do not want them, however, to be as big as they are when displayed accroding to their dfault settings. If I change the font-size of a H1 tag to make it considerably smaller with CSS, will that cause any problems with Google?

Thanks!

-Tim

[KakenBetaal]

It hasn't caused a problem on my site in the last 18 months. I seriously doubt that any search engine would penalise use of these tags. Why should I have to use H3, 4, and 5 on an HTML page when I use H1, 2, and 3 in MS Word documents? And I don't use the default styles in either!

I think that it's much more likely that any H1 or H2 keywords weighting will be significantly reduced if it hasn't already been. :)

[tedster]

This should never cause search engine problems as long as you are using H tags for "true" section headers. H tags are supposed to be about the logical structure of the page, and not visual presentation (although most browsers do give a default presentation style).

CSS is all about separating presentation information (visual, speech, etc.) from the content. So using H tags in this way is W3C compliant, and not in any sense trickery. It's what we're s'posed to do!

Now, if you use css to hide lots of H tags and keyword stuff the page -- then you might get burned or at least ignored. But that's not what you're doing, so have no concerns.

It's good to use H tags in a wholly logical way. Ideal is one H1 tag per page, and subheads properly nested (i.e. no H3 without a preceding H2 etc)

[JamesR]

Never had a problem with it.

What tedster said.

[KakenBetaal]

H tags are supposed to be about the logical structure of the page, and not visual presentation

You're right! I assumed normal heading/sub-heading/para use in my message. Putting your whole page as H1 might not be such a good idea.

[tedster]

I'd think that putting an entire page in an H tag would be the same as not using an H tag at all. No, not a good idea.

It's all about helping the Google algo figure what your page's main topic is. It also helps your human visitors see what your page is about with a quick scan.

H tags aren't magic pills. Putting lots of text into H tags just dilutes the value of your really important keywords and hurts you overall on Google (and everywhere else.) It doesn't do your human visitors any good either. Just a silly attempt at trickery.