[rallport]

Right, I'm slowly starting to use HTML5 in more of my sites now - bit by bit. For instance, I'll use the HTML5 doctype with at least a header, nav, footer, section and article tags. TO me, they all make semantic sense.

However, the one thing that I still can't accept is HTML5 allowing multiple h1 tags per page E.g. a h1 tag per element. Whilst this does make semantic sense, I'm not sold at on it from an SEO point of view. for instance, it's widely know that multiple h1s can trigger spam checks on a website.

From an SEO point of view, a single h1, with cascading levels of headers makes more sense. However, for a long time, the 'rule' if you like has been one h1 per page - to represent the content of the whole page.

I've been trying to do a bit of digging to find out the current situation with this and I'm now totally lost. Lots of opposing views and opinions, all with their positives and negatives.

For example, I'm currently developing our company website - so SEO needs to be top priority. I've added in the new HTML5 tags but don't feel confident enough to use lots of h1's.

Just out of interest, what are your opinions on this and would you, currently, go as far to use multiple h1s per page?

I can see why a lot of our bigger competitors have redesigned their sites using just the html5 doctype and let normal html4 markup As this is company website, that currently does quite well SEO wise, I'm very tempted to do the same - simply to be safe.

[Renaissance-Design]

At a guess, I'd imagine Google will look out for the whole markup structure and not flag for spam if you have one <h1> per <section> or <article>.

That's only a guess though, I'd have to see it backed up with solid data (or ask Matt Cutts) before I'd trust it in production.

[rallport]

That's the thing at moment - I can't see any solid evidence that Google do treat a HTML5 differently - all the blogs and forums are mearly hearsay currently

I'm going to develop my new site using only the basic HTML5 elements - header, footer, nav, a section per page - and leave it at that. For a business, it's bit of a gamble

A blog from Matt Cutts dispelling any myths would definately help myself and lots of other people.

[notbanksy]

Personally, I don't think it makes semantic sense to have multiple h1's - to my mind, each page should have a single element (currently h1) that describes the content of the page. With multiple h1's you risk making the theme of the page more ambiguous.

I can see the argument behind it, but I think it leaves a gap in the document that nothing else can fill. I wouldn't trust it.

[nfc212]

rallport, on 18 September 2011 - 01:36 PM, said:

A blog from Matt Cutts dispelling any myths would definately help myself and lots of other people.

Will a video from Matt Cutts do?



Seems that "Don't overdo it" is the message.

[Wickham]

There was a discussion some time ago, but I doubt if I can find it.

I think the conclusion was that you don't HAVE to start each element like <header> <footer> etc with a h1 tag. All the w3.org recommendations say is that when you have used one in any tag (of any rank), then others in the same element should cascade down in rank.

So the conclusion in the other post was to continue with one h1 tag on the page and start other tags with h2, then follow with h3, h4, etc.

However, there was also comment that if the page is divided into Sections with the <section> tag, then it IS a good idea to start each section with h1.

Confusing? Probably safe to use as few h1 tags as possible at present.

This page
http://www.google.co...b41a0dac1&hl=en
has two comments

Quote

It doesn't matter if you've nested in in HTML 5 or not - as a best practice you should only have one H1 tag per page.

ericlebihan

8/2/11
Not if you use the HTML5 SECTION tag, you can have one H1 tag for every section.

This post has been edited by Wickham: 18 September 2011 - 02:44 PM

[rallport]

nfc212, on 18 September 2011 - 02:25 PM, said:

Will a video from Matt Cutts do?



Seems that "Don't overdo it" is the message.

Not really, as the video is very out of context - you;ve slightly missed what I'm asking

It's not addressing multiple h1's within the context of HTML5 - which is what I asked

Anyone who has ever dabbled in SEO knows the general consensus is one h1 per page, to describe the whole page is best practice. What I'm asking, is how will Google react to me having multiple h1's on a HTML5 document - 7 or more h1's would be fairly common for even a simple HTML5 document.

This post has been edited by rallport: 18 September 2011 - 03:40 PM

[nfc212]

rallport, on 18 September 2011 - 03:36 PM, said:

Not really, as the video is very out of context - you;ve slightly missed what I'm asking

It's not addressing multiple h1's within the context of HTML5 - which is what I asked

Anyone who has ever dabbled in SEO knows the general consensus is one h1 per page, to describe the whole page is best practice. What I'm asking, is how will Google react to me having multiple h1's on a HTML5 document - 7 or more h1's would be fairly common for even a simple HTML5 document.

As the head honcho at Google is saying that it is acceptable to use multiple <h1> on a page, unspecified Doctype, then I would imagine if the W3C spec allows for the use of one <h1> in each <section> of a <!DOCTYPE html> page even imternet noobs like Google will catch up eventually.

There is some debate as to whether these <hn> tags are even relevant any more as the default sizes can be overridden in the stylesheet. I've noticed that <p> text will be featured in the results listing dependent on the search term ignoring the <hn> text if the <p> text has words more relevant to the search term.

As one objective is to use HTML5 to build page layouts more akin to printed media like newspapers and magazines then multiple <h1> will become more valid.

You don't see a newspaper with a headline that tries to describe not just the main article but also the lesser stories on the page.

[BlueDreamer]

The key is in linearising a page (or just removing your CSS) and see what structure makes the best sense.

For instance this might make sense in some cases:

<header>

<h1>My site</h1>

	<h2>Navigation</h2>
	<ul>
    	<li><a href="#">Something</a></li>
    	<li><a href="#">Something else</a></li>
    	<li><a href="#">Something more</a></li>
	</ul>

</header>

<section>

<h1>Articles</h1>

	<article> 
	<h2>My article</h2>
	</article>

	<article>
	<h2>Another article</h2>
	</article>

</section>

<footer>

<h1>Categories</h1>

 	<ul>
 	<li><a href="#">Something</a></li>
 	<li><a href="#">Something else</a></li>
 	<li><a href="#">Something more</a></li>
 	</ul>

</footer>

This post has been edited by BlueDreamer: 18 September 2011 - 09:02 PM

[+1r]

I am not quite convinced as yet about html5 there is still browsers lacking support...

[notbanksy]

nfc212, on 18 September 2011 - 06:08 PM, said:

You don't see a newspaper with a headline that tries to describe not just the main article but also the lesser stories on the page.

That's not a very fair comparison though - a newspaper doesn't rely on electronic indexing to attract sales for a start. Also, newspapers follow a very predictable format - people have become used to finding what they're looking for. And being a physical product, it has completely different usability constraints to the web.