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.
Multiple H1 tags on Squarespace blog page?
-
Hi All,
I use Squarespace and while running my site (https://www.growmassagebusiness.com) through programs am seeing that my blog posts are being seen as one page with multiple H1 tags. I read through the SS help desk and found back in 2015 someone wrote that it's not a bit deal b/c of HTML5 and that the search engines will read each blog post as a sub-page.
I'm not so sure about that and wondering what the experts think?
If that is screwy then I'm considering possibly making each blog post it's own page rather than using their blog posting format.
-
Thanks Nigel,
That is my line of thinking as well. I'm in the process of separating the pages of the blog into separate pages. Each post is already optimized with a meta description and from my perspective, I think that having them all on one page is muddying the content.
They do claim to have the HTML5 configured correctly but I'm not seeing any of the blog posts ranking anywhere - only the home page of my site.
This blog set up nonsense was the reason I went over to WP - but after dealing with too many system crashes and bloated themes- I realized, if I was a developer then WP would be perfect, but for me and the little time I want to spend on my website- SS is a good choice.
However, their blog set up is confounding!
-
Hi Ramjam
I have read a lot about HTML5 - but nowhere is there a direct comparison between the SEO rank in SERPS of an article separated by HTML5 tags vs an Article on a unique page marked up correctly.
My feeling is that given an article in the middle of a multi article single blog page and an article placed on its own page that the latter would rank much higher. However, I have no evidence to show you as there does not appear to be any.
If you still feel that this is a viable route to go then read this:
Then place an article on the same page with others marked up correctly with HTML5 Headers, Article & H1 tags and one on its own unique page. See which rank higher.
Maybe this is a question we should put directly to Rand and ask him to do a whiteboard Friday on it. Every bit of SEO advice I have ever read has been about creating unique pages with their own defined content so this goes against all of that!
Regards
Nigel
-
Here's a response from the Squarespace forum, does this make sense?
"...HTML5 has changed this by introducing some new semantic tags that each take an h1 tag (article, section, etc). Squarespace uses these new semantic tags to differentiate content such as blog posts and that's why there are multiple h1 tags per page. Search engines are now optimized to account for this so it's not a problem anymore. Some HTML validators will still throw red flags, so that may be why you are getting that advice."
I'm reading that this is acceptable in HTML5 format but am wondering if search engines actually find it acceptable as well?
-
Completly Agree good answer my friend
-
Thanks guys, that is my thought as well.
I do like Squarespace (I've had experience using SS, Wix, Weebly, and WP) for my business needs. When I had my massage business here in San Diego, I was able to get on the first page of a Google search for my services on a SS site, so I know it can be optimized.
But the blog set up is really funky. The titles of the blog post are automatically set to H1's, so Ceseare, your suggestion wouldn't work because so far I've got around 21 posts and I can't do H2-H21, that would be worthless I think.
They do enable each post to have it's own meta description and tags- but they are showing up all on one page in my Screaming Frog and Ahrefs tools.
Thanks Nigel and Cesare- you guys confirmed that I will go in and just make each blog post its own page. Because each post is already centered around a keyword/phrase.
-
Hi Ramjam
It sounds like you have all of your blog posts on one page and that the header for each post is an H1. This is really bad from an SEO point of view as the resulting page is huge and splattered with conflicting keywords. Google would have no idea how to rank the page and for what.
The best way to run your blog is to have a single page for each post - this is the only way that you can properly separate content and to write about properly themed and separate subjects. Then you can add appropriate META tags for each page (Title & Description) and focus on a single focus keywords or very tight selection of contextually similar keywords. Also remember that when you add images to name them the focus keyword to further help with the SEO of the page.
You can still use H1s on that page but keep them keyword focused and don't duplicate content across pages. You will find that each blog page will be listed in Google. Note: ensure that tags are turned off and categories are properly optimized when you do this as this can add duplicate content URLs.
I hope that helps
Regards
Nigel
Carousel Projects
-
Although its possible to have multiple H1 tags on one page I personally wouldn't do that. There is no reason to make things more complicated than they should. 1 H1 for every post, 1-3 H2 if needed. Thats is. Like this its clear and unambigious.
Another discussion here about that topic: https://moz.com/community/q/multiple-h1-tags-for-different-section-on-one-webpage-in-html5-website-should-i-have-only-one
Hope this helps.
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
-
Shifting target keyword to a new page, how do we rank the internal page?
I have been targeting one keyword for home page that was ranking between the postilion 6-7 but was never ranking on 1st as there were 2 highly competitive keywords targeted on the same page, I changed the keyword to an internal service page to rank it on 1st, I have optimized the content as well but the home page is still ranking on 11th, how do I get the internal page rank on that keyword
On-Page Optimization | | GOMO-Gabriel0 -
H1 tag positioning impact
Hello, I am currently working with a dev team to develop a new site. We have designed the title tags to sit below a banner image on each page but the technical team are insisting the h1 title tags must come above the banner for maximum SEO impact. I am sceptical about this, can anybody please shed some light and/or share any up to date resource on this? I have attached a side by side wireframe to illustrate the pages with the h1 tags in both positions. Thank you! HnWcLTx
On-Page Optimization | | Popidev0 -
Category page canonical tag
I know this question has been asked a few times on here but I'm looking for very specific advice. Currently when you go to a category, say http://www.bronterose.co.uk/range.html, a canonical tag is added to the head of the page. There are plenty of "variant" pages which carry the same tag, for example: /range.html?p=2
On-Page Optimization | | crichardson9
/range.html?p=3
/range.html?dir=asc&order=price
/range.html?dir=asc&limit=all&order=price Is it wise to push the "link juice" for each of these variant pages to the top level page? Or should each variant page have its own unique canonical tag? After reading many blog posts, guides and papers I'm truly confused! Any general guidance or recommendations would be much appreciated. Chris.1 -
What is on page links?
Hi - i would like to know exactly what an on page link is? i understand the linking system however cant work what exactly what an on page link is? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | OasisLandDevelopment0 -
Page Title in Local SEO Title Tags?
Hi All, Still working on my title tag usage for local SEO, and I was hoping for some more feedback. My question is this: In Local SEO titles, I'm using location + keyword combinations, unique on each page. However, since each page has a specific title for the client, I figure I should be placing that at the front. My thought here was that this helps with the overall usability to the reader of the website. Ex. Contact Us page for Pizza shop Contact Us | Springfield IN Gourmet Pizza | Moe's Italian Pizza Anyone have thoughts on this one? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | kbaltzell0 -
Title and Heading Tags
Firstly I would like to comment on how helpful this site is. I haven't posted much before but have been reading tonnes of answers for many months now and have been finding it really useful. I used the SEOmoz scanner and the main problem highlighted was duplicate content so I started to add 'customer product reviews' I had received and unique 'further information' to each page (hopefully this was the right thing to do to solve duplicate content! : ) ) Then I looked at heading and title tags. Currently I set title tags for each product page to be "Brand Name- Product Name" but after doing some research we are thinking of putting Keyword Description of Product | Product Name | Brand Name (around 60 characters long). So is this the advised thing to do and create unique titles that are relevant to each specific product page for over 200 pages we have? In addition, any advice on setting optimum tags would be great. We keep reading varying tips online. I gather ideally h1 needs to be a shorter keyword rich version of the title tag? Many Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | jannkuzel0 -
Is there a SEO penalty for multi links on same page going to same destination page?
Hi, Just a quick note. I hope you are able to assist. To cut a long story short, on the page below http://www.bookbluemountains.com.au/ -> Features Specials & Packages (middle column) we have 3 links per special going to the same page.
On-Page Optimization | | daveupton
1. Header is linked
2. Click on image link - currently with a no follow
3. 'More info' under the description paragraph is linked too - currently with a no follow Two arguments are as follows:
1. The reason we do not follow all 3 links is to reduce too many links which may appear spammy to Google. 2. Counter argument:
The point above has some validity, However, using no follow is basically telling the search engines that the webmaster “does not trust or doesn’t take responsibility” for what is behind the link, something you don’t want to do within your own website. There is no penalty as such for having too many links, the search engines will generally not worry after a certain number.. nothing that would concern this business though. I would suggest changing the no follow links a.s.a.p. Could you please advise thoughts. Many thanks Dave Upton [long signature removed by staff]0 -
Avoiding "Duplicate Page Title" and "Duplicate Page Content" - Best Practices?
We have a website with a searchable database of recipes. You can search the database using an online form with dropdown options for: Course (starter, main, salad, etc)
On-Page Optimization | | smaavie
Cooking Method (fry, bake, boil, steam, etc)
Preparation Time (Under 30 min, 30min to 1 hour, Over 1 hour) Here are some examples of how URLs may look when searching for a recipe: find-a-recipe.php?course=starter
find-a-recipe.php?course=main&preperation-time=30min+to+1+hour
find-a-recipe.php?cooking-method=fry&preperation-time=over+1+hour There is also pagination of search results, so the URL could also have the variable "start", e.g. find-a-recipe.php?course=salad&start=30 There can be any combination of these variables, meaning there are hundreds of possible search results URL variations. This all works well on the site, however it gives multiple "Duplicate Page Title" and "Duplicate Page Content" errors when crawled by SEOmoz. I've seached online and found several possible solutions for this, such as: Setting canonical tag Adding these URL variables to Google Webmasters to tell Google to ignore them Change the Title tag in the head dynamically based on what URL variables are present However I am not sure which of these would be best. As far as I can tell the canonical tag should be used when you have the same page available at two seperate URLs, but this isn't the case here as the search results are always different. Adding these URL variables to Google webmasters won't fix the problem in other search engines, and will presumably continue to get these errors in our SEOmoz crawl reports. Changing the title tag each time can lead to very long title tags, and it doesn't address the problem of duplicate page content. I had hoped there would be a standard solution for problems like this, as I imagine others will have come across this before, but I cannot find the ideal solution. Any help would be much appreciated. Kind Regards5