H1 Tags and HTML5
-
I have read that now you can have multiple h1 tags on a page without it negatively impacting SEO. Previously it was advised to only have 1 h1 tag on a page.
Example: with the new semantic mark up you could have separate h1 tags for the header, article, aside and footer.
Is this really the case?
-
Hi Joel,
According to Matt Cutts, Google doesn't penalize sites just for having multiple H1 tags, see: link
In my opinion they crawlers/indexers can be set to detect overuse of H2 tags and it is possible that Google can penalize for that. From usability point of view and good structured content I fully agree with Matthew.
And from SEO perspective ... how can you tell crawler bots what is most important on your page? Consistency of main factors: meta title - meta description - keyword - title (H1) - content structure an so on is crucial for your page.
Marek
-
Hi Joel,
Yes, you can use multiple h1 tags across a page. From what I've seen, it doesn't have much, if any, impact on your search performance. As for HTML5, it is completely valid to have multiple h1 tags or to structure it with an h1 per section.
All that said, I still prefer to have only one h1 tag per page. Realistically, each page can only have one heading that is the most important. However, this isn't about search or usability or programming requirements, it is just my preference because it helps me prioritize my content.
Thanks.
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
-
Question on Indexing, Hreflang tag, Canonical
Dear All, Have a question. We've a client (pharma), who has a prescription medicine approved only in the US, and has only one global site at .com which is accessed by all their target audience all over the world.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jrohwer
For the rest of the US, we can create a replica of the home page (which actually features that drug), minus the existence of the medicine, and set IP filter so that non-US traffic see the duplicate of the home page. Question is, how best to tackle this semi-duplicate page. Possibly no-index won't do because that will block the site from the non-US geography. Hreflang won't work here possibly, because we are not dealing different languages, we are dealing same language (En) but different Geographies. Canonical might be the best way to go? Wanted to have an insight from the experts. Thanks,
Suparno (for Jeff)1 -
How to remove skip links, main navigation, sidebars as h2 tags in wordpress genesis
Our website CMS is wordpress. Due to the Genesis Framework; below 4 phrases tuned into h2 tags: Skip links, Header Right, Main navigation and Footer. How to remove these?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Recommendations for the length of h1 tags and how much does it matter. What is the major disadvantage if the h1 tags are slightly longer.
recommendations for the length of h1 tags and how much does it matter. What is the major disadvantage if the h1 tags are slightly longer.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MariaMcGrath0 -
Adding hreflang tags - better on each page, or the site map?
Hello, I am wondering if there seems to be a preference for adding hreflang tags (from this article). My client just changed their site from gTLDs to ccTLDs, and a few sites have taken a pretty big traffic hit. One issue is definitely the amount of redirects to the page, but I am also going to work with the developer to add hreflang tags. My question is - is it better to add them to the header of each page, or the site map, or both, or something else? Any other thoughts are appreciated. Our Australia site, which was at least findable using Australia Google before this relaunch, is not showing up, even when you search the company name directly. Thanks!Lauryn
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | john_marketade0 -
Using href lang tag for multi-regional targeting on the same page
Hi, I have the site au.example.com and I ranked on google AustraliaI would like to be ranked also in Google New Zeland for the same page (au.example.com) Because they are geographically & culturally close Can I place href lang tag for both countries and present the same page The code should look like: OR should i have create a different page for New Zealand (for eample: http://au.example.com/EN-NZ) And the code will look like: What will work better or there is other solution? Hope I’m clear.. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kung_fu_Panda0 -
Are all duplicate content issues bad? (Blog article Tags)
If so how bad? We use tags on our blog and this causes duplicate content issues. We don't use wordpress but with such a highly used cms having the same issue it seems quite plausible that Google would be smart enough to deal with duplicate content issues caused by blog article tags and not penalise at all. Here it has been discussed and I'm ready to remove tags from our blog articles or monitor them closely to see how it effects our rankings. Before I do, can you give me some advice around this? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Daniel_B
Daniel.0 -
Is this structure valid for a canonical tag?
Working on a site, and noticed their canonical tags follow the structure: //www.domain.com/article They cited their reason for this as http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3986.txt. Does anyone know if Google will recognize this as a valid canonical? Are there any issues with using this as a the canonical?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Should I check Use noindex for Tag Archives?
I have a page indexed > (http://mysite.com/mypost) and also http://mysite.com/tag/mypost The same post shows up twice, one with /tag/ one without when I search site:http://mysite.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vinner-280241
Is this a duplicate content?? Can I get penalized for this? In the All in one plugin should I check Use noindex for Tag Archives to avoid this or doesn't matter.
Thanks0