Auto - update of h1 to h2
-
Hi,
I have recently inherited an ecommerce website and been tasked with improving SEO. I noticed a lot of pages were using several h1 tags and, with the help of my developer, used the css to overwrite the secondary headings as h2 tags.
However, since doing so many of the pages have fallen 15-40 places in the SERPS.
The h1 / h2 switch was the only update. Can anyone suggest why the pages would have fallen like this, and if it is a temporary measure likely to recover in time?
Thanks to anyone in advance for your help...
-
Ah ok, so generally I wouldn't suggest making any forced H1, H2 changes through php. Because, now all of your H1s will be affected (if I'm reading this right), which you don't want to happen.
Also if your issue before was having multiple H1 tags before, you'll now have multiple H2's. What CMS are you working in? Did you have multiple H1s before due to styling reasons (ex. Wordpress)?
If the header font style is what you were bothered with, modifying the css to reflect similarity across headers would work great. Then use the headers as you normally would.
Lastly, this should not affect your rankings that dramatically. I would look at your website analysis, backlink profile and see if any big on-site content changes were made.
-Hope this helps-
-
Hi Britney, thanks for for response on this.
This all gets quite complicated for my 'non-developer brain' but I'll try to explain how we've done it...
A .php file was used to define the structure of the product listings on our brand pages, so rather than amend every page my developer inserted some code, using a new class to overwrite some of the the h2 tags:
if(isset($modlet->h1)){?>
expandText($modlet->h1);?>
and replicated the h1 style for this class in the styles.css document.
I've checked the source as rendered in a browser and where the h1 tag should be the h2 tag appears, as expected.
Thank you for the suggestions, I'll look into these and let you know how I get on.
-
Agree with Matt, this drastic of a swing isn't likely due to changing your H1, H2s in CSS.
Can you please clarify "used the css to overwrite the secondary headings as h2 tags." ?
Lots of people use multiple H1s or H2s on a page due to formatting reasons. They like the way all of the H2s look (font size, weight, font, etc.) but the best way to go about this is to make custom CSS changes that modify ALL Header tags to look the same. This way you can use proper H1, H2, H3, H4, etc. and it won't look like a wonky cascading sub-title issue.
Some things to check regarding your ranking:
1. Google Search Console for server & index issues
2. Dropped 301s
3. New spammy backlinks
4. Any search console warnings
-
You know, what—I looked into this a bit more, and you actually might be right about what caused this. Let me get you some more help.
-
Hi Matt, thanks for your response.
I've not carried out any competitor analysis on this, what sort of thing should I be looking for?
-
That strikes me as a pretty massive change in rankings for a simple on-page change. Even a site-wide one, like that. Have you run any analysis on your competitors to see if anything they did might be to blame?
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
-
Multiple H1 Tags for different section on one webpage in HTML5 Website? Should I have only one?
https://www.tcs.com website has multiple H1 tag on around 40 out of 1000 pages. Webpage has different section and each section is important that's why used multiple H1 tag (one h1 for each section) **I understand, google will not penalize for multiple H1. But having multiple H1, for site like tcs, is it good or should use only one H1 tag? **Pls check https://www.tcs.com to see heading tag(6 heading tag used).
Web Design | | JayprakashSEO0 -
Dealing with the impending Google mobile compliance update - is bMobilized any good as a temporary measure?
We've been caught a bit off guard with the upcoming Google mobile compliance issue and received the warnings in webmasters about fixing mobile usability issues. It will still be some time before we can have the site re-coded as responsive. I have stumbled upon a converter tool (which turns any site into one that's mobile friendly) called bMobilized, which essentially turns your site into one that's mobile friendly. Have you used bMobilized? Is it a safe idea to use this service temporarily until our new responsive site is ready in a few months? Do you have any suggestions for temporarily getting around the mobile compliance issue while our new responsive site is being built? Thanks
Web Design | | Martin_S0 -
How to make my site title H1?
Hi In my Header.php I have the following php code for my title: <title><br /><?php<br />// Generate Page Title dynamically<br />if (is_home()) {<br /> bloginfo('name'); ?> - <?php bloginfo('description');<br />} elseif (is_category()) {<br /> single_cat_title(); ?> - <?php bloginfo('name');<br />} elseif (is_single()) {<br /> single_post_title();<br />} elseif (is_page()) {<br /> bloginfo('name'); ?>: <?php single_post_title();<br />} elseif (is_404()) {<br /> bloginfo('name'); ?> - <?php _e("Page not found", "fungames");<br />} elseif (is_search()) {<br /> bloginfo('name'); ?> - <?php _e("Search results for", "fungames"); echo esc_html($s, 1);<br />}<br />?><br /></title> This generates a good title different for every page/post I have on my site. But is now H1. I want the same code if, but with H1 tag somewhere in it. Cant figure it out how to do it! Can u help please?
Web Design | | Catinas970 -
Does using role="heading" instead of H1 in HTML code affects SEO?
Does using role="heading" instead of affect SEO? http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/Headings_using_role%3Dheading
Web Design | | LNEseo0 -
Did i got hit from some google updates.
Hello everybody, i got a problem and i hope someone can clear it up for me. my root domain authority is 42 and home page is 52 (jumped there only yesterday) ,while my google page rank is still PR2 (same for 3 month already). 1 month ago i changed my home page design (not the text) and since then my home page just disappeared from the search engines. can somebody look on my website www.kspiercing.com , and tell me if i got hit by some panda ,koala,penguin or some other sweet Google animal . thank you very much.
Web Design | | kspiercing0 -
Duplicate H1 tag IF it holds SAME text?
Hello people, I know that majority of SEO gurus (?) claim that H1 tag should only be used once per page. In the landing page design I'm working with, we actually need to repeat our core message stated in H1 & H2 - at the bottom of the page. Now the question is: Can that in any way cause any ranking penalty from big G? In my eyes that is not attempt to over optimize page as it contains SAME info as the H1 & H2 at the top of the page. Confusing, so I'm hope that some SEO gurus here will share some light on this. Thanks in advance!
Web Design | | RetroOnline0 -
Given the lastest Google update, should I rewrite my Flash site or try to present an alternative HTML/CSS site?
I have a site that was created using Flash. The reasoning behind this was, at the time, that I didn't care if the site ranked or not (portfolio site). Now I would like to drive traffic to the site from SE's. Given the Penguin update, should I rewrite my Flash site in HTML/CSS or present an alternative site for bots and browsers that don't support Flash? My concern is that by presenting an alternative site to bots and non Flash supporting browsers that the SE's will see potentially see this as cloaking. Thoughts and advice would be much appreciated.
Web Design | | mj7750 -
XML Sitemap that updates daily/weekly?
Hi, I have a sitemap on my site, that updates but it isn't a XML sitemap. See here: http://www.designerboutique-online.com/sitemap/ I have used some free software to crawl the site and create a sitemap of pages, however I think that if I were to upload the sitemap, it would be out of date as soon as I listed new products on the site, so would need to rerun it. Does anyone know how I can get this to refresh daily or weekly? Or any software that can do it? I have a web firm that are willing to do one, but our relationship is at an all time low and I don't want to hand over £200 for them to do one. Anyone with any ideas or advice? Thanks Will
Web Design | | WillBlackburn0