Multiple H1 titles on a page?

by 27 replies
32
Hello,

I'm a quite experienced programmer, webdeveloper and thought I knew it all about SEO.. until I noticed yoast, seobook, seomoz etc is all using H1 tags, where it really doesn't always make sense - especially SEObook...

Also they're using h1 tags from 3 to 18 times on a single page, eventhough they aren't using HTML5 and semantically sectioning the content.

I'd just like a debate related to the use of H1 tags in year 2012. I know there's a lot of threads regarding the subject already, but now that these so called "authorities" in the SEO field are using multiple H1 - do I need to look at it differently?

In my opinion, H1 should only be used for the primary subject of a site, and multiple h2's for secondary phrases and so on...

What do you guys think?
#website design #multiple #page #titles
  • I agree. Google thinks a little ( very little ) more about h1 tags while indexing your page, so your main KW should be h1, and the rest h2. But if seomoz is using all h1..... Makes me question myself :/
    • [1] reply
    • I think google dont like it
  • you can use as many times as you want. but precedence is something google uses, which you should be aware of. that means most important one comes first, then second most important and so on.
  • The best thing to do if you want to cover everything, is to put the h1 tag at the beginning of your page, and the /h1 tag at the end of your page. (I'm not serious.)
    • [1] reply
    • One factor that they acknowledge on is that using more H1 tags will definitely get a website penalized by Google.
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  • Ideally you can use h1 tag once in your web page. You may use h2 tags multiple times according to your need.
    • [1] reply
    • That's only true up till HTML4. In HTML5 you can have more than one h1...
      • [1] reply
  • You can use H1 for per post, but recommended only 1 H1 for one post, If you have 2 keywords, simply use H2, and mark the different color
  • This does not answer your question but puts it into perspective.

    As you know, Blogger is Google's platform. Google makes certain suggestions when it makes some 'tricks' easily available to Blogger users, and makes others hard to use for Blogger users. That is, if Blogger wants users to use a feature they make it easily available. On the other hand, if Blogger doesn't want people to do something they make it hard for users to do.

    Recently Blogger added a new feature. It made using h1, h2 etc easily available on each post. The terms they use are: heading, subheading, minor heading and normal. This refers to type size.

    By implication Blogger is telling users that it wants people to use different type sizes. It doesn't say how much and how often though.
  • H1 tags can be used to tell Google what your page is about in one phrase. However, through abuse of styling h1's to look like normal text. Google has changed the emphasis of H1 tags.

    Instead, Google looks at how big the font is. The bigger the font the better. However, font size is relative on the page itself. So a full page of h1s/giant text does not make a difference.

    Maybe those websites were experimenting, or possibly the only reason they use the h1 tag throughout is to merely style the text.
    • [1] reply
    • I think having multiple H1 titles on a page are not good. It should be 1 or 2 time only, not more then that.
      • [1] reply
  • H1 tag must be used only once, H1 probably represents your primary keywords or key terms for your website.
    You can repeat the further Header tags by 2 or 3 times.
  • H1 tag usually use on big title or something you want Google look onward it . But it should not use more than once . It will make your site look like spam and might get slap by google penguin .
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  • i have not so much introduced about html 5,but whatever i have heard many times from so many genius SEO's that if we have multiple h1s on any page then Google will considered only first one as the h1 and rest as useless.please correct me anywhere if you have some better suggestions
  • It is a good practice to use one H1 per pages but there are no restrictions at all. I have seen many sites ranking well without having any H1 etc. but only H2s and so on.
  • To get the best result for your SEO, you can combine all tags, H1, H2, H3, and also H4. But you can modify this tags as your wish. Not all reference give you best result for SEO. Google algorithm always changes.
    • [1] reply
    • Guys,

      What happens if the site has more than 1 H1?
  • i like to have one h1 only ... but find it ironic that many CMS themes that tout how seo friendly they are truncate all blog posts on the front page in h1 .... resulting in a dozen or so h1's ....

    Hell, 75% of the sites i diagnose don't even have meta info showing up and are still ranking nicely. In the defense of ONE h1 only, The huffington post website for instance, has ONE h1, 0 h2, 36 h3, 72 h4 and 1 h5 all on the homepage, a meta description just 25 characters long and is chewed up with flash. The site has a PR8 ....
  • I believe that it's always been proper to have just a single H1 tag. Thats the way I have always done it since html has been around. I 1st started learning html from htmlgoodies site.
  • H1 tag is most important tag in on page seo.There are six heading tag h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 but H1 and H2 tag is most important.You use h1 tag main heading & title and h2 tag use sub heading
  • Ya, as many people says above,
    Your main Keyword should be in H1 tag and rest should in H2 or H3.
    If you use more then one H1 tags. Google will not give important to this and may be will ignore this.
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  • As an SEO, h1 tag is used only once for primary title. But this is not true in many case website with more than 1 h1 tags comes at 1st position.
  • As everyone says, Its over optimization. Multiple header tags must be used carefully. Other wise you will get penalized.
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    • I was looking around for information to determine if 3 H1 tags on a page would lead to an SEO penalty.

      What I found was Google's Matt Cutts video on YouTube answering the question:
      "More than one H1 on a page: good or bad?"
      (Sorry could not post a link since my post count must be 15 or greater to be able to do this.)

      Well Matt's answer made it clear that it was perfectly OK for me to go ahead with the 3 H1 tags on this page.

      (Wish most of my SEO queries could be resolved as conclusively as this one!)
  • I don't looking at H1 Important in SE. I have been try a long time. But reseach this is meta title is the best. Are you agree ?
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    Multiple H1 titles on a page?

    Hello, I'm a quite experienced programmer, webdeveloper and thought I knew it all about SEO.. until I noticed yoast, seobook, seomoz etc is all using H1 tags, where it really doesn't always make sense - especially SEObook...