<h2> before <h1> : is this a problem?

[HockeyFighter]

Would having a <h2> before the <h1> of a page cause problems for the googlebot and the others?

[Purple Martin]

It won't prevent googlebot etc from reading the page, but there's a small chance it might adversly affect page rank.

It's a good idea to use semantic HTML and get things in the correct order so that all agents (browsers, bots, etc) can easily interpret the page.

I'm assuming you're using positioned divs and playing with the order of the divs in the code. Keep playing, it's usually possible to get a good logical order.

[HockeyFighter]

yeah I finally got it the way I want it. I just assumed that the content had to go in a certain order to make the most sense to the visitor, but I managed to just flip a few things around and how the H1 is above the H2 on the page.

I looked at w3 and they said that it doesnt matter what the order is, but figured I'd check with what google is doing first though.

[Gusgsm]

Is there anywhere in the W3C recommendations that says that h1 must be the first logical and structural element?

I mean, something like "h1 must precede, as main heading, everything else"?

Curious minds.

[HockeyFighter]

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), as converting such documents to other representations is often problematic.

Doesnt appear the w3 cares, but google might?

[rocknbil]

If there's any question - just use style sheets to make your H1's the size you want them, or establish classes for large and small heads. This will allow you to use H1's where you have H2's and they'll look the way your H2's do now.

[Red_Eye]

Aren't h1, h2 .... tags meant to give relavance to headings. if so why should it matter which order they are in. if the google bot comes accross a h1 tag after a h2 wouldn't it decide that the h1 is the more important?

[HockeyFighter]

rocknbil,

Its not an issue of how they appear by default because I've already fixed that with css.

I was more worried about the order of them, and if having a <h2> tag appear before the <h1> tag in a document causing a problem with googlebot etc.