More than one H1 tag?

Freeway
1

Search engines like H1 tags.

It appears that Freeway will allow me to tag my heading, sub heading and sub sub headings with the H1 tag as long as I name them differently (eg. heading, sub heading, sub sub heading etc).

Surely there can only be one H1 style per website? or else everything on the internet would be tagged H1?

Confused…

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

2

Mark

There is nothing stopping you from having as many H1 tags, It would make sense not to, and keep that tag solely for the main page content (page heading)

Try adding your page URL here to have a look at your page H tags and how a search engines views them

http://www.w3.org/2003/12/semantic-extractor.html

David Owen { Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains }

http://www.ineedwebhosting.co.uk | http://www.PrintlineAdvertising.co.uk

On 10 May 2010, at 12:24, Mark wrote:

Search engines like H1 tags.

It appears that Freeway will allow me to tag my heading, sub heading and sub sub headings with the H1 tag as long as I name them differently (eg. heading, sub heading, sub sub heading etc).

Surely there can only be one H1 style per website? or else everything on the internet would be tagged H1?

Confused…

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

3

Sometime around 10/5/10 (at 07:24 -0400) Mark said:

Surely there can only be one H1 style per website? or else
everything on the internet would be tagged H1?

You can only have one H1 style set up, but you can, if you like,
apply that style to multiple items in a page. It does make sense to
try to avoid this. Not because it would make all your text rise up in
a search engine index, but because it would make search engines pay
less attention to your content overall. Reserve the H1 style to your
page’s most important headline. Use lesser H styles (h2, etc.) for
lesser headlines and similar subhead content.

It is a bit like using ALL CAPS WHEN TYPING. If you do it
occasionally, when you need to indicate a high-level title or
heading, that’s fine. Do it for all your text, however, and the
impact is completely lost. (And people stop reading your emails - but
that’s a different matter.)

k

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

4

Hello Keith

I’m working on a website and have just created several H1 styles:
H1.left
H1.right
H1.smallprint

Obviously I won’t continue to use all these H1 styles, because Google would take a dim view of it, but why does Freeway allow me to tag several styles with the same tag?

And why does Freeway allow us to add a name to the tag? Does the name make any difference to anything, or is it just to be used as a useful tool to remember what the tag is for (eg. H3.headingsonleft)?

Thanks

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

5

You can keep on using those different H1 styles, just use them on separate pages, okay?

Freeway lets you do anything that’s legal in HTML. There are no official RFCs from the W3 that forbid multiple H1 tags on a page. But there is consensus among those in the search community that one H1 per page is plenty, thanks.

The name property of a tag in Freeway’s Style Editor maps to the class property in CSS. So where you read Name in the Style dialog, think ‘class’.

Walter

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

6

You might want more than one h1.somethingelse tags styled differently on other pages of the site.

David Owen { Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains }

http://www.ineedwebhosting.co.uk | http://www.PrintlineAdvertising.co.uk

On 10 May 2010, at 13:54, Mark wrote:

Hello Keith

I’m working on a website and have just created several H1 styles:
H1.left
H1.right
H1.smallprint

Obviously I won’t continue to use all these H1 styles, because Google would take a dim view of it, but why does Freeway allow me to tag several styles with the same tag?

And why does Freeway allow us to add a name to the tag? Does the name make any difference to anything, or is it just to be used as a useful tool to remember what the tag is for (eg. H3.headingsonleft)?

Thanks

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

7

How bizarre that you can have multiple styles, all using the H1 tag. I’m guessing that some unscrupulous web designers create website where nearly all the text is H1.

Mark

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

8

Then that’s what Keith was saying about leaving the caps-lock key
down. If there’s no contrast between H1 and other tags, then
semantically it all has the same weight as if it was in a P tag.

Walter

On May 10, 2010, at 10:00 AM, Mark wrote:

How bizarre that you can have multiple styles, all using the H1 tag.
I’m guessing that some unscrupulous web designers create website
where nearly all the text is H1.

Mark

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

9

The search engines will only be looking in the actual page at the H tags. Not for extra h1.something tags in your style sheet.

It might be common place to use H2 or H2.something for “all” sub headings on a page if those sub-heading are covering a separate subject

eg consider these headings:

H1 = My page title all about widgets

H2 = Red Widgets

H3 = Red Widget prices

H2 = Blue Widgets

H3 = Blue Widget prices

David Owen { Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains }

http://www.ineedwebhosting.co.uk | http://www.PrintlineAdvertising.co.uk

On 10 May 2010, at 15:00, Mark wrote:

How bizarre that you can have multiple styles, all using the H1 tag. I’m guessing that some unscrupulous web designers create website where nearly all the text is H1.

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

10

On 10 May 2010, 1:26 pm, waltd wrote:
…But there is consensus among those in the search community that one H1 per page is plenty, thanks.

Yeah, and this gets my goat. The semantic meanings of the ultra-dumbed down-from-SGML-HTML-tags are squat. Most of the tags are inherently meaningless, but some SEO bozos are trying to force a consistent meaning on them. I guess

and
    should still have some understandable inherent meaning, but how many web designers use
    as an indication of an actual block of quotation from a cited source?

    Or at that rate even understand what the original semantic concept was supposed to be?

    is--or I guess was--supposed to be a division of the document indicating a change of basic concept. Not a new page. I might want to carry over a run of material from page to page, using subheadings, and have the first page begin with an h1. And then hit another h1 on page 4, or whatever.

    Or, I might want to have an exquisitely laid out box-in-box with a dozen h1s embedded, each representing the heading for an article. Whatever.

    How is a “first-level-division-of-concepts” relevant to a page? Not at all, except to search engines that can’t think of any better way to parse information on the web. Oh well, the web is a work in progress, for sure.

    freewaytalk mailing list
    email@hidden
    Update your subscriptions at:
    http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

11

Sometime around 11/5/10 (at 18:56 -0400) Bucky Edgett said:

Or, I might want to have an exquisitely laid out box-in-box with a
dozen h1s embedded, each representing the heading for an article.
Whatever.

Etc, etc…

How is a “first-level-division-of-concepts” relevant to a page?
Not at all, except to search engines that can’t think of any better
way to parse information on the web. Oh well, the web is a work in
progress, for sure.

Amen to that.

For SEO goodness it is good (actually well-nigh essential) to try and
work according to the W3C diktats, but sometimes it really does get
in the way of intelligent content organisation.

[sigh]

Just keep reminding yourself that good design is all about creative
problem solving. And boy, do we ever get a load of problems in this
medium! :slight_smile:

k

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

12

If you consider disabled use of a web site i.e. like screen readers all this stuff is essential for accessibility. It might not appear a big deal for the vast majority of able bodied users who ignore it. The search engines like sites that are accessible.

David

On 12 May 2010, at 10:30, Keith Martin wrote:

For SEO goodness it is good (actually well-nigh essential) to try and work according to the W3C diktats, but sometimes it really does get in the way of intelligent content organisation.

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

13

Sometime around 12/5/10 (at 11:45 +0100) David Owen said:

If you consider disabled use of a web site i.e. like screen readers
all this stuff is essential for accessibility.

Absolutely, and I’m in complete agreement. I’m just not so happy
about the one-size-fits-all approach that says the ‘right way’ is
just one chunk of H1 text per page. I see the logic, but I can also
see multiple examples where this doesn’t fit quite so well. Ah well,
it is what it is.

k

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options