How will it effect SEO to have multiple h1 tags on a page?
-
I have a client who recieved this advice from his marketing consultant: "If there are multiple h1 tags on a page, this can confuse Google and it may have a negative impact on the keyword rankings. If you could ask your web developer to go in and remove the h1 tags on the header images that would be helpful. This way it will be easier for Google to index your site and will help your keyword rankings."
How will it effect SEO to have multiple h1 tags on a page?
-
This was a question that was recently raised by somebody else here on the Q&A and you can see the full discussion here. Although the question is slightly different, the answer is the same: it depends which HTML version you are using. If it's HTML4 or XHTML, only use one h1 per page, but if you are using HTML5 you can have one per section. So you could have one in your
<nav>, on in your, one in each of the
<aside>s on your page and one in your
<footer>.
The reason for this is that for HTML4 search engines look at headings to give the page hierachy - remember they only had
s to separate content areas - but HTML5 uses the new semantic elements like
<header>and <fotter>to work out hierarchy, with headings only affecting hierachy within one of those tags.</fotter></header>
</footer>
</aside>
</nav>
-
Sorry, but have to disagree a bit as having multiple H1's isn't the issue that most think it is, or once was. One of my own sites has 20 H1 tags (purely by chance as it is a single page design, but it's a long story), and that site ranks top 3 for a number of highly competitive phrases with almost half a billion results.
No, it isn't best practice and I wouldn't advocate doing this, but it isn't a major ranking factor.
-Andy
-
Your header images should not have h1 tags in them as well because then every page is going to have the same h1 tag with the same keyword - making it so that your are optimizing against that keyword on all your other pages.
-
Well said iSTORM! To add using images in H1 tags is not very search engine friendly or natural approach. H1 tags are to be used for text only, so adding images may not work to your advantage.
-
Google looks at h1 tags as clues to what the page's content is about. If you have multiple h1 tags with different keywords then it is difficult for Google to contextualize the page.
Best practice: one h1 tag with the keyword or theme you are trying to optimize for.
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
-
Website and seo for categories and pages
I have a website with a number of specific locations listed in a directory. The locations are in categories but i also have several pages with the same titles and descriptions. Will this be a problem when it comes to seo
On-Page Optimization | | twiguins0 -
Google Search Console issue: "This is how Googlebot saw the page" showing part of page being covered up
Hi everyone! Kind of a weird question here but I'll ask and see if anyone else has seen this: In Google Search Console when I do a fetch and render request for a specific site, the fetch and blocked resources all look A-OK. However, in the render, there's a large grey box (background of navigation) that covers up a significant amount of what is on the page. Attaching a screenshot. You can see the text start peeking out below (had to trim for confidentiality reasons). But behind that block of grey IS text. And text that apparently in the fetch part Googlebot does see and can crawl. My question: is this an issue? Should I be concerned about this visual look? Or no? Never have experienced an issue like that. I will say - trying to make a play at a featured snippet and can't seem to have Google display this page's information, despite it being the first result and the query showing a featured snippet of a result #4. I know that it isn't guaranteed for the #1 result but wonder if this has anything to do with why it isn't showing one. VmIqgFB.png
On-Page Optimization | | ChristianMKG0 -
Keyword Appearing on Home Page - Moz Page Grader
Hi Today I entered www.partydomain.co.uk through the Moz Page Grader and found that the Home Page is Ranked B. I noticed that an Area we could improve on is the amount of times we are using our main keyword "Fancy Dress" on the home page. Please can you take a look at www.partydomain.co.uk and scroll to the bottom of the page were the tabs are containing losts of content. I am thinking about removing all of thoose Tabs. Our Competitors dont have any content as such on the home page and are ranking higher than Party Domain for "fancy dress" What do you think ? remove all the tabs to be like the others that rank better? Or cut the text right down ? Thanks Adam
On-Page Optimization | | AMG1000 -
Static pages with dynamic content: Good for SEO?
I wanted to know ones thoughts on reducing duplication by creating a static page with a few dynamic fields. Has anyone done this? If 75% of a page is static and 25% is dynamic, is that a good ratio? It's an idea I am thinking about to combat duplication issues affecting ecommerce pages. Some ecommerce sites generate a new page for a small change like size, but the content is the same. What if you could create a single static page and depending on the size chosen, only those fields connected to the size are dynamic? Everything else remains the same. For caching purposes, you always submit a cached page with default values. Wouldn't this work? Isn't this a solution for duplicate ecommerce pages? It would also help in ranking, rather than multiple external links across duplicate ecommerce pages, it would just be to a single page.
On-Page Optimization | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
How to rank well on 2 keywords - 2 separate pages or 1 combined page
Hi, I have a website about allergy. We ar developing new content, and through keyword research I have discovered that "dog allergy" and "cat allergy" are both very common searches. However, the cause, and symtoms are very alike for these 2 types of allergy so it would make sense to combine the two allergies on one page. So my question is: What do I choose to increase my chances to ranke the best I can for both "cat allergy", and "dog allergy"? Should I develop 2 separate pages for cat & dog allergy or should I do a combined page? (We would of course review the texts so no duplicate content/text would be used if we chose to have 2 pages) I would be so greatful for your advice!! Kind regards, Jeanette
On-Page Optimization | | Mylan-GDM0 -
My company's product is referred to by two different names (SVN and Subversion). When cleaning up our Title tags, is it OK to use either name to keep the title tags around 70 characters?
I am cleaning up title tags that are too long or not correct. In our title tag we reference our product (a version of OSS source code). This product is often referred to as both SVN or Subversion. When writing Title tags is it OK to use one or the other depending on the length of the Title Tag? For instance: Contact Us | Free SVN & Git Hosting | Bug & Issue tracking | CloudForge vs **About CloudForge | Free Subversion & Git Hosting | Bug Tracking ** | |
On-Page Optimization | | CollabNet0 -
Using Robots Meta Tag on Review Form Pages
I have gone over this so many times and I just can't seem to get it straight and hope someone can help me out with a couple of questions: Right now, on my dynamically created pages created by filters (located on the category pages) I am using rel""canonical" to point them to their respective category page. Should I also use the robots meta tag as well? Similarly, each product I have on my site has a review form on it and thus is getting indexed by Google. I have placed the same canonical tag on them as well pointing them to the page with the review form on it. In the past I used robots.txt to block google from the review pages but this didn't really do much. Should I be using the robots meta tag on these pages as well? If I used the robots meta tag should I noindex,nofollow? Thanks in advance, Jake
On-Page Optimization | | jake3720 -
On-Page SEO Priorities: Title's, Anchor Text or Meta data?
**Any suggestions for prioritized on-page SEO work? Relative weights of importance? ** **What is most important from highest to lowest? ** MetaTag Descriptions? Titles? Anchor Text? Alt Text - for images? Anything else? We might not be able to do everything at once like I desire ......but I do feel we should at least get the ball moving in the right direction. I am looking for ideas or suggestions on what to prioritize for a little bit of on-page SEO work on our website. I personally feel that SEO is pretty important but I am a novice. I have been reading this site the past week and want to convince my webpage guy that on-page SEO is important and that we should at least do a few things and gradually get the work done. Rightfully so our #1 priority is to redesign our landing pages (they are bad) . I also think we should do a little On-Page work concurently. (Lack of on-page SEO is also preventiing me from successfully submitting and being accepted by Dmoz, Yahoo, BOW etc) He is mainly a back engine guy and does a very good job with that. If I were to TELL him to do a few prioritized on-page SEO things what would you suggest? He did do something on the home page at my suggestion but that is all to this point. We have over 400 pages indexed with very little on-page SEO on them. Thank you, UtahTiger
On-Page Optimization | | Boodreaux0