Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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
-
Impact of keyword/keyphrases density on header/footer
Hi, It might be a stupid question but I prefer to clear things out if it's not a problem: Today I've seen a website where visitors are prompted no less than 5 times per page to "call [their] consultants".
On-Page Optimization | | GhillC
This appears twice on the header, once on the side bar (mouse over pop up), once in the body of most of the pages and once in the footer. So obviously, besides the body of the pages, it appears at least 4 times on every single pages as it's part of the website template. In the past, I never really wondered re the menu, the footer etc as it's usually not hammering the same stuff repeatedly everywhere. Anyway, I then had a look at their blog and, given the average length of their articles, the keyword density around these prompts is about 0.5% to 0.8% for each page. This is huge! So basically my question is as follow: is Google's algorithm smart enough to understand what this is and make abstraction of this "content" to focus on the body of the pages (probably simply focusing on the tags)? Or does it send wrong signals and confuse search engine more than anything else? Reading stuff such as this, I wonder how does it work when this is not navigational or links elements. Thanks,
G Note: I’m purposely not speaking about the UX which is obviously impacted by such a hammering process.0 -
SVG image files causing multiple title tags on page - SEO issue?
Does anyone have any experience with SVG image files and on-page SEO? A client is using them and it seems they use the title tag in the same way a regular image (JPG/PNG) would use an image ALT tag. I'm concerned that search engines will see the multiple title tags on the page and that this will cause SEO issues. Regular crawlers like Moz flag it as a second title tag, however it's outside the header and in a SVG wrap so the crawlers really should understand that this is a SVG title rather than a second page title. But is this the case? If anyone has experience with this, I'd love to hear about it.
On-Page Optimization | | mrdavidingram2 -
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 -
Choosing a title tag in seo (H1 or H2 or H3)
I look many times on google that what is the best tag to set in title for seo, H1 or H2 or H3 In many forums and sites they are asking that you need to put only H2 tag in title and someone ask to put H1 in title and i am confused, Some body tell me the correct tag for seo in google, or any other search engine.
On-Page Optimization | | seom20140 -
Disclaimer in footer - is it affecting my SEO?
For legal reasons I am required to include a 266 word disclaimer in the footer of every page of my credit card comparison site creditcards.com.au. My question is in 2 parts: is this indexable content likely to be hurting my SEO? if so, what is the best way to include the text in the footer but prevent search engines from indexing it? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | OMGPyrmont0 -
Missing meta descriptions on indexed pages, portfolio, tags, author and archive pages. I am using SEO all in one, any advice?
I am having a few problems that I can't seem to work out.....I am fairly new to this and can't seem to work out the following: Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂 1. I am missing alot of meta description tags. I have installed "All in One SEO" but there seems to be no options to add meta descriptions in portfolio posts. I have also written meta descriptions for 'tags' and whilst I can see them in WP they don't seem to be activated. 2. The blog has pages indexed by WP- called Part 2 (/page/2), Part 3 (/page/3) etc. How do I solve this issue of meta descriptions and indexed pages? 3. There is also a page for myself, the author, that has multiple indexes for all the blog posts I have written, and I can't edit these archives to add meta descriptions. This also applies to the month archives for the blog. 4. Also, SEOmoz tells me that I have too many links on my blog page (also indexed) and their consequent tags. This also applies to the author pages (myself ). How do I fix this? Thanks for your help 🙂 Regards Nadia
On-Page Optimization | | PHDAustralia680 -
Do we need to use the canonical tag on non-indexed pages?
Hi there I have been working in / learning SEO for just over a year, coming from a non dev background, so there are still plenty of the finer points on-page points I am working on. Slowly building up confidence and knowledge with the great SEOMoz as a reference! We are working on this site http://www.preciseuk.co.uk (we are still tweaking the tags and content by the way- not finished yet!) Because a lot of the information is within accordians, a page is generated for each tab of the accordian expanded, for example: http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php is the main page but then you also have: http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=0 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=1 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=2 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=3 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=4 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=5 All of which are in the same file. According to the crawl test, these pages are not indexed. Because it is all in one file, should we add the canonical tag to it, so that this is replicated in all the tab pages that are generated? eg. Thanks in advance for your help! Liz OneResult
On-Page Optimization | | oneresult
liz@oneresult.co.uk2
