H1 tag in the footer?
-
Quick question:
I have been scouring SEOMoz.org along with webmaster forums looking for an answer, but we have a person who insists that the H1 tag be located in the Footer.
I feel that is is fundamentally wrong because it is not the intent of the H1 tag, and I do not believe it is a best practice.
That being said would we see what little value the H1 tag has disappear if we put it in the footer, would we be penalized, or am I being too vanilla by wanting to keep it in the Title position?
-
The question is why do it?
Some say that the H1 has little value, but thats not the case, goolge will try to find a heading and i believe SEOMoz test show that using a H1 had lttle benifit over other ways of presenting a header, but all the same a header you should have and the best header is the H1.
Bing on the over hand dose value the H1 tag and sees no H1 tag as a violation. Bing says the H1 is almost as important as the Title tag.
http://perthseocompany.com.au/seo/reports/violation/the-h1-tag-is-missing
It also stats that muliplue use may lead to no indexing, I would not mess with it, expecialy if there is no reason to do so.
http://perthseocompany.com.au/seo/reports/violation/the-page-contains-multiple-h1-tags
-
Sorry! That question was a little funny. I have never heard of the H1 tag in the footer. H stands for Header. Hey, if your guy is persistent, tell him that we would like to see a high ranking website with an H1 in the footer. NOT a good idea.
-
When I was hired on at my company the site had been built with Absolute Positioned Div Layers... that said there were H1 tags at the bottom of the page.. Dreamweaver isn't very friendly about where it puts these types of layers. The site still did fairly well in the ranking despite this..
That said, I wouldn't personally put a H1 tag in the footer, I would want it as close to the body tag as possible. Though given the way AP Div's work you could have a H1 tag next to the body tag and still be in the footer.
-
Relevant or not, its the first time I've heard of putting an H1 tag in the footer. Perhaps calling it an F1 tag would be more appropriate. Seriously, some would argue the H1 tag has little to no relevance (Rand would probably fall into this category) and therefore some do not use it at all. Todd Malicoat would suggest the H1 tag has some relevance and is a good practice for page structure and keyword instance.
A recent thread among these posts and one I ascribe to is that failing to use an H1 tag is probably not going to hurt you, but using one is certainly not going to hurt you. If it is going to be of benefit to the user in terms of readability and navigation (with an arguable smidgeon of G benefit) go ahead and use it.
That being said, strong keyword copy in the lower block level is good block level distribution. Putting an H1 tag would be irrelevant in my opinion and unorthodox as H1 tags historically have been in the top block.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What heading tag to use on sidebars and footers
Hello, I have some awareness of how to use H1, H2 and H3.
On-Page Optimization | | kowston
H1 only once per page as the main page heading.
H2's should be subheadings, H3's are sub-sub headings of the and so on.
This structure gives hierarchy and opportunities to use additional keywords in an order of priority. I can clearly understand how this would work in an article but what about other content on the page such as global/frequently repeated elements like sidebars and footers? I see sites - and in particular, I have examed SEO focused sites - that use H3, H4 and H5 in these instances seemingly giving themselves scope to use at least H2 tags as part of the page content and break out of the structure hierarchy when dealing with sidebars and footers. I suppose this could signal theses headings are sections of the page that are less relevant than the main article content but that is just an assumption. I don't know what is correct.0 -
Issues with Multiple H1 tags on homepage?
Hi folks, My homepage has 3 identical H1 tags due to the fact that I have had to create individual hero images (with headings) for desktop, tablet and mobile. I couldn't get my theme to display the layout in exactly the way I wanted on each device without doing a specific hero image and tag for each device type. Does this have a major impact on my SEO? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | Veevlimike
Mike.0 -
Once more, H1 in the logo
So, from a semantic point of view, it's really clear that this isn't the best practice. My question is, does anybody has a REAL experience with this case? Like changing the logo and having some improving (or not) on the general ranks. Please, I am not speaking about "general recommendations", I am speaking about real cases. 'I checked most of the previous answer and couldn't find a answer with "proper experience", only "general semantic recommendation".
On-Page Optimization | | Nobody15569049633980 -
Different title tags and meta descriptions for desktop and mobile?
Is it possible to use different title tags and meta descriptions for mobile users? For Example: In the SERP for desktop you'll see the desktop title tags and meta descriptions, but in the SERP for mobile you'll the mobile versions of the webpage.
On-Page Optimization | | alex19780 -
Site Wide Title Tag Discussion
Do you think it's good to have an instance of your primary keyword occur on most of your site's title tags throughout your site? Or do you think having the keyword occur in most title tags throughout the site will dilute the ranking ability for the home page? I haven't read much about this in "best practices" for title tags. hmmmm...
On-Page Optimization | | Joes_Ideas0 -
Is it ok to use the H1 tag for bullet points?
Our search results page doesn't have a typical H1 tag because adding a true header would take up space unnecessarily. Therefore, we've assigned the h1 tag to be the breadcrumb. As filters are applied, the breadcrumb grows to include these filters. This breadcrumb is coded as bullet points, even though they're not the typical style of bullet points. Here's a screenshot: http://screencast.com/t/AjGC9iAYR3 For example, the breadcrumb: Home >> NYC Social Media Classes >> Adult >> Manhattan is currently coded as: | |
On-Page Optimization | | mevseo
| | * class="first"><a <span="">href</a><a <span="">="</a>/">Home |
| | * <a <span="">href</a><a <span="">="</a>/nyc/classes/social-media/age-adults/neighborhood-manhattan" class="Selected">Search results |
| | |
| | |
| | id="cat_social-media" type="checkbox" checked onclick="setCategory('social-media')" /> |
| | # style="font-size: 12px; display: inline;">NYC Social Media Classes |
| | <label <span="">for</label>="cat_social-media"> |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | <nobr>id="age_adults" type="checkbox" checked onclick="setAge('adults')" /><label <span="">for</label>="age_adults">Adults</nobr> |
| | |
| | |
| | <nobr>id="nbhd_manhattan" type="checkbox" checked onclick="setNeighborhood('manhattan')" /><label <span="">for</label>="nbhd_manhattan">Manhattan</nobr> |
| | |
| | | Right now that H1 tag just relates to 'NYC Social media classes', but we'd like to expand it to include both 'Manhattan' & 'Adults' - would that be ok? And if so, would it be better to put the tag before and after the tag?0 -
Developing my footer area
Hi, My website has no footer area and I would like some advise on creating/optimising it for seo. Would it advise to keyword link to 10 of my key pages & Have my full company address and this will help with localising my website Company name address, Dublin, Ireland
On-Page Optimization | | Socialdude0 -
Meta description tags & title tags duplicate content?
Although meta description tags have no impact on rankings - can there be a negative effect from having many duplicate meta title + description tags with just 1-2 words switched out?
On-Page Optimization | | qlkasdjfw0