H1 tag options
-
Hi,
Working on a website and the developer has asked some questions about the h1 tag placement...
So the main page has a bold heading named 'Overview' which then has a left hand navigation to tab through the content which appears next to the nav. The main content then has a heading and content below it.
The 'Overview' heading appears on all pages of the left nav so really shouldn't be the H1 tag as it would cause duplication.
One option we have thought about is to have the right hand heading above the content be the h1, and it has been suggested to stylize the 'Overview' heading but it won't actually be an h1. My question is would this have any negative impact on SEO?
Thanks!
-
Thanks for the responses!
I think we're going to have to go down the route of styling the heading to look like an h1 and then use the heading which is related to the content to be the h1 to avoid duplication and the make best use of the header tag.
Really good to get other opinions !
-
H1 is a tag search engines use to help identify what your page is about. Using "overview" for all H1 would imply that your site is about "overview." (Ok, I'm dumbing it down a little bit, but I'm doing it to make a point.)
The more specific an H1 tag can be to the content of a page, the better. It's easier for search engines to understand your page and it's a better user experience (how valuable is "overview" all over the place?).
-
No negative impact. Unless it's a one service/product website, the heading "Overview" would not be the best use of the tag. This would be something more like "Real Estate Refinancing Product Overview" or something much more descriptive of what is to follow.
Utilization of H2's and H3's will also be useful towards structuring the overview page.
Duplication would be my secondary concern. After running many site audits this year, I have seen how many sites have duplicated heading tags as a result of how it was built into the site theme/design. My recommendation is to make h1's an editable field at the page level, rather than generate automatically, or, style it remove the tag from page heading's (as you suggested), this would be the next best option.
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
-
Schema Markup Warning "Missing field "url" (optional)"
Hello Moz Team, I hope everyone is doing well & good, I need bit help regarding Schema Markup, I am facing issue in my schema markup specifically with my blog posts, In my majority of the posts I find error "Missing field "url" (optional)"
Technical SEO | | JoeySolicitor
As this schema is generated by Yoast plugin, I haven't applied any custom steps. Recently I published a post https://dailycontributors.com/kisscartoon-alternatives-and-complete-review/ and I tested it at two platforms of schema test 1, Validator.Schema.org
2. Search.google.com/test/rich-results So the validator generate results as follows and shows no error
Schema without error.PNG It shows no error But where as Schema with error.PNG in search central results it gives me a warning "Missing field "url" (optional)". So is this really be going to issue for my ranking ? Please help thanks!6 -
Categories VS Tag Duplicate Content
Hello Moz community, I have a question about categories and tags . Our customer www.elshow.pe just had a redesign of its website. We use the same categories listed before . The only change was that two sub categories were added ( these sub-categories were popular tags before ) .Then now I have 2 URL's covering the same content: The first is the URL of the subcategory : www.elshow.pe/realitys/combate/ The second is the URL that is generated by the tag "combate" that is www.elshow.pe/noticias/combate/ I have the same with the second sub category: "Esto es guerra" www.elshow.pe/realitys/esto-es-guerra/ www.elshow.pe/noticias/esto-es-guerra/ The problem is when I search the keyword "combate" in my country (Perú), the URL that positions is the tag URL in 1st page. But, when I search for "esto es guerra" the URL that positions is the **sub category **in the second page. I also check in OSE both links and sub categories goes better than tags. So what do you guys recommend for this? 301 redirect? canonicals? Any coment is welcome. Thanks a lot for your time. Italo,
Technical SEO | | neoconsulting
@italominano WmzlklG.png 1RKcoX8.png0 -
Canonical URL Tag: Confusing Use Case
We have a webpage that changes content each evening at mid-night -- let's call this page URL /foo. This allows a user to bookmark URL /foo and obtain new content each day. In our case, the content on URL /foo for a given day is the same content that exists on another URL on our website. Let's say the content for November 5th is URL /nov05, November 6th is /nov06 and so on. This means on November 5th, there are two pages on the website that have almost identical content -- namely /foo and /nov05. This is likely a duplication of content violation in the view of some search engines. Is the Canonical URL Tag designed to be used in this situation? The page /nov05 is the permanent page containing the content for the day on the website. This means page /nov05 should have a Canonical Tag that points to itself and /foo should have a Canonical Tag that points to /nov05. Correct? Now here is my problem. The page at URL /foo is the fourth highest page authority on our 2,000+ page website. URL /foo is a key part of the marketing strategy for the website. It has the second largest number of External Links second only to our home page. I must tell you that I'm concerned about using a Cononical URL Tag that points away from the URL /foo to a permanent page on the website like /nov05. I can think of a lot of things negative things that could happen to the rankings of the page by making a change like this and I am not sure what we would gain. Right now /foo has a Canonical URL Tag that points to itself. Does anyone believe we should change this? If so, to what and why? Thanks for helping me think this through! Greg
Technical SEO | | GregSims0 -
H1 - site name or page title?
Hi all, I have always used h1 tags for the site name and then h2 tags for the page title, thus: Bob's Chunky Bacon Store Smoked Bacon Bacon bacon bacon bacon etc... My reasoning for this is I believe it is semantically correct. The h1 represents a book's title and the h2 the name of a chapter. I seem to have read, in a few places, that my h1 should be the page title: Bob's Chunky Bacon Store Smoked Bacon Bacon bacon bacon bacon etc... From a SEO view, which of these is the better approach? Thanks in advance for any input.
Technical SEO | | jimneath0 -
Whitespace INSIDE # tag harmful?
Hi, I understand that 'whitespace' in source code is absolutely fine and is stripped out. For example the following code is fine: Red Apples some text However, how is whitespace interpreted INSIDE html tags such as H1's? My Dev team have instructions to add H1's to a page, however they have done so like this: Red Apples (37 characters long) rather than this: Red Apples (10 characters long) Do you think this extra space will be harmful? The browser renders it fine, however if you use something like the mozbar plugin is shows the H1 length as 37 characters. I know the 10 character H1 is 100% relevant to the search term "Red Apples", however is the 37 character H1 only 27% relevant? (10/37) I've made the request to the Dev team to remove this whitespace because I'd rather err on the side of caution, but its been knocked back because the HTML spec specifies consecutive white-space should be interpreted as a single space and all browsers build the DOM by trimming a tags value - and they imagine search bots do the same so don't want to mess with the compiler. Anyone have experience of this? I've never had whitespace in a H1 before so don't know. Happy to leave the whitespace in if it's not going to be an issue. Thanks in advance
Technical SEO | | FashionLux0 -
Google showing former meta tags in search results inspite of new tags being crawled by it
I had changed the meta tags for a site www.aztexsodablast.com.au about a month back and Google has also crawled those new tags but in search results when I search for the term 'Aztex Sodablast' it is continuing to show the old tags while on the site, the new tags are being displayed. What may be the issue and how could I correct the problem?
Technical SEO | | pulseseo0 -
Thumbnail-based navigation like YouTube Sidebar - they don't use ALT tag
Notice on the YouTube sidebar, each video has a thumbnail and a title. But, for the ALT tag, YouTube simply uses the word "thumbnail". In the past, i was using a keyword phrase for my thumbnail ALT tag. I thought I was being clever. But is this superflous? We note that the A tag on the YouTube items, encompasses the SPAN that is the video + title. Does Google associate the text of the title as valid "anchor text" despite the existance of other info in that span --- e.g. like View Count and the User Name of the video creator? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | anthony-3054420 -
Backtracking from verification meta tag to the correct Google account is difficult
A Google verification meta tag was created and implemented on a site that I am now responsible for (I took over an SEO project after a long lapse), but no one seems to know what Google account was used to create the meta tag in the first place. I'm finding it very difficult to backtrack from verification meta tag to the Google account, and all the online help is for those having trouble moving forward with the verification. Any suggestions or advice?
Technical SEO | | MaryDoherty0