Don't use an h1 and just use h2's?
-
We just overhauled our site and as I was auditing the overhaul I noticed that there were no h1's on any of the pages. I asked the company that does our programming why and he responded that h1's are spammed so much so he doesn't want to put them in. Instead he put in h2's. I can't find anything to back this up. I can find that h1's are over-optimized but nothing that says to skip them altogether. I think he's crazy. Anyone have anything to back him up?
-
I think that basic on page seo needs to be followed. Meaning that you should have one h1 on the page and above the fold. That will signal to google the importance of that phrase. The rest should be h2 and h3 but used sparingly. This will give google something to compare the h1 to. I know some sites make the mistake of putting all there keywords on the main page in h1, that doesn't work and hurts the site in rankings. I'm not sure what your programmers thinking is, maybe he has knowledge that I don't have which is very possible but from my experience and constant reading of seo best practices h1 implemented correctly helps.
-
I feel the same way. Thanks for the moral support!
-
To be fair, your programmer probably doesn't have a huge understanding about SEO and has probably just misunderstood something he has read somewhere.
Yes h1 tags can be over optimized and can have an effect but the simple answer is, don't over optimize the h1 tags. Just because some people abuse them isn't a good reason to exclude them. In fact, I would actively encourage you not to exclude them as they are an important part of your on-page SEO strategy.
-
I have very little to back him up.
I appreciate that h1 tags are over-optimised when they are poorly executed (e.g. keyword stuffing or using more than one instance of a h1 per page) however the same can be said for h2 tags.
If I were in your position I would look for further clarification of what he sees as over-optimized h1 tags.
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 tools and metrics do you use to show a topic's search interest over time?
I have a foundation repair client that is down in leads for the structural repair portion of their business. They have not lost any major rankings, but leads are down compared to last year. They asked if people are searching for this type of work less this year compared to last. I checked Google Trends and Keyword Planner data but found very different results. Is either of these tools accurate, or is there a better tool to use?
Algorithm Updates | | DigitalDivision1 -
Numbers vs #'s For Blog Titles
For your blog post titles, is it "better" to use numbers or write them out? For example, 3 Things I love About People Answering My Constant Questions or Three Things I Love About People Answering My Constant Questions? I could see this being like the attorney/lawyer, ecommerce/e-commerce and therefore not a big deal. But, I also thought you should avoid using #'s in your url's. Any thoughts, Ruben
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Google's spell check recognize a keyword with volume
When the keyword "acls recertification" (an important keyword for our client) is typed into the Google search box, the word "recertification" is underlined in red. Note that you only need to type "acls rec" to make the red underline appear.BUT, Google does not underline the word "recertification" when it is typed into the search box alone, nor does Google underline the word "recertification" when the following keywords are searched: cpr recertification bls recertification pals recertification ^These are all closely related to the keyword "acls recertification," so this spell check behavior is very inconsistent.Why does this matter? Because no matter how close you come to typing "acls recertification," Google's autocomplete suggestions never include "acls recertification" (because of the perceived misspelling?).BUT, Google does suggest "acls recertification online" in the dropdown menu. If you select the "acls recertification online" suggestion then backspace until the word "online" is gone, the red underline disappears, and "acls recertification" becomes an autocomplete suggestion. VERY strange behavior...I have replicated this issue on various depersonalized browsers and devices, so I am confident that this is not related to my personal settings.This keyword contributes to a large portion of our client's business (they specialize in acls certification and recertification), so you can imagine how concerning this is for us. Note that until very recently (3-4 months ago), this keyword did NOT have any spell-check issues. This keyword averages 2400 searches per month according to AdWords which should be enough volume to allow Google to recognize the correct spellingI posted this issue in the Google product forums, where I was advised to submit feedback directly on the search results page via Google's "feedback" link. I have submitted this feedback to Google, but I thought I would bring this to the MOZ community as well to see if anyone has experienced a similar issue, or has any ideas as to what could be causing this issue.
Algorithm Updates | | RyanKent0 -
Does it impact over ranking of any website if their same content being used some other external sources
Hi Moz & members, I just want to make sure over website www.1st-care.org , does it impact over ranking this website if the same content (of about us or home care services) being used some other external sources or local citations places. Do those published same content create any ranking drop issue with this website's and making its content strengthen week? . As I was on 9th position in Google.com before, now it has slipped to 29th position. WHY? is there content issue or anything else which i am not aware.
Algorithm Updates | | Futura
See the content used:
Home page content
About us page content Regards,
Teginder Ravi0 -
Undertanding Google's PMD (Partial Matching Domain) policy...
Hi, If your business name contains keywords, is that an issue? Some companies, have keyword based brand names... So what is Google's policy regarding EMD or PMD? What happens when the company name has a keyword in it? If anyone could help clarify, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Ben
Algorithm Updates | | bjs20100 -
Guides to determine if a client's website has been penalized?
Has anyone come across any great guides to pair with client data to help you determine if their website has been penalized? I'm also not talking about an obvious drop in traffic/rankings, but I want to know if there's a guide out there for detecting the subtleties that may be found in a client's website data. One that also helps you take into account all the different variables that may not be related to the engines. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | EEE30 -
Should I use the Disavow Tool at this point?
After Penguin, our site: www.stadriemblems.com jumped up to #1 for the keyword "embroidered patches." Now, months later, it's at the top pf page two. I'm pretty sure this is because we do have a few shady links (I didn't do it!) that perhaps Penguin didn't catch the first time around, but now Google is either discounting them or counting them against us. My question is, since I'm pretty sure those links are the reason we are gradually declining, should I submit them to Google as disavowed, even though technically, we're not penalized . . . yet? I have done everything possible to get them removed, and it's not happening.
Algorithm Updates | | UnderRugSwept0 -
Large site with faceted navigation using rel=canonical, but Google still has issues
First off, I just wanted to mention I did post this on one other forum so I hope that is not completely against the rules here or anything. Just trying to get an idea from some of the pros at both sources. Hope this is received well. Now for the question..... "Googlebot found an extremely high number of URLs on your site:" Gotta love these messages in GWT. Anyway, I wanted to get some other opinions here so if anyone has experienced something similar or has any recommendations I would love to hear them. First off, the site is very large and utilizes faceted navigation to help visitors sift through results. I have implemented rel=canonical for many months now to have each page url that is created based on the faceted nav filters, push back to the main category page. However, I still get these damn messages from Google every month or so saying that they found too many pages on the site. My main concern obviously is wasting crawler time on all these pages that I am trying to do what they ask in these instances and tell them to ignore and find the content on page x. So at this point I am thinking about possibly using robots.txt file to handle these, but wanted to see what others around here thought before I dive into this arduous task. Plus I am a little ticked off that Google is not following a standard they helped bring to the table. Thanks for those who take the time to respond in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | PeteGregory0