Hidden H1 Tags

[smulto]

I am trying to triple check this - I have a client who has all of their H1 tags as hidden.  As far as I am concerned, anything hidden is not a good thing for SEO.

I am debating with their online store provider that this is not good practice.  Everything I am reading says it is not good practice.  They are saying it is for "My SEO experience would suggest otherwise.  In addition, the H1 adds semantic value for users with disabilities to help give them context with what the content of the page is."

Did I miss something?

They are a large brand and have not been penalized.  This has been happening for 8 months.

[aadewusi]

I have a related queston about "hidden" H1 tags.

I not iced on my company's website that there are multiple H1 tags which is a no-no, but the first tag, which must be part of our theme, is hidden by positioning it off the screen with the following css:

position: absolute;
left: -9999px;

What are the SEO implications to using this css?

Thanks,
KP

[gazzerman1]

yes screen readers use them but why not incorporate them in the site with css? It will help their rankings!

Rather than trying to get them to remove them, argue the seo case for them to show them.

[WilliamKammer]

Yes, the way it's usually set up, screen readers for people with disabilities can still read the hidden H1s, so you won't have that card to play against them.

[smulto]

Thanks!  Now my big issue is the whole "disabilities" issue.  Have you heard that it helps with users with disabilities?  Even if it is hidden?

Trying to figure this part out so I have a complete argument against it.

Thanks!

[WilliamKammer]

I have seen this done in order to help screen readers, but I definitely do not recommend this. They may argue that semantic rules of HTML 5 dictate that this is an okay practice, and it is for HTML 5, but not for Google.

Google doesn't adopt new rules or semantic changes right away. Changes have to take hold and become common practice. This isn't common enough, and hidden H1s do open you up for potential penalties.

[gazzerman1]

they will get slapped at some point, if googlebot does not get them a disgruntled website owner that has a penalty will look at the top ten results, notice it and report them.

It is a direct violation of Google terms https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66353?hl=en

There is no problem in my opinion with using css to style your H1 tags so that they look nice on your site. But if you hide them you are just waiting for a penalty.

Also googlebot is much smarter than it was this time last year it is able to look at pages and see the content on the page rather than just looking at the code. this was part of the hummingbird release to target ad heavy sites above the fold but also looks for large logo's and content above the fold. All of this leads to the fact that Google knows what is visible and what is not and will rank you according to those factors. the H1 tags might be giving them no benefit at all right now without them realizing, When in fact they could be benefiting from them. how much business will they lose when they lose all their rankings for 3 weeks or maybe longer? Is it worth what they think they are gaining from it.

If they are really stubborn you could tell them to change a page or two and test it out. Do a fetch in WMT so the page is indexed quickly and see the results over the course of the week.