Header Tags

**Peter Sinclair** · 28th April 2005, 09:49 AM

How should header tags be used?

Obviously H1 should be the "main title" of the page but what about the others in regards to SEO? Which header should contain what?

J.K. · 28th April 2005, 01:44 PM

Hey Peter..

In terms of SEO, common wisdom would hold that it's the most impt is the H1, but that's not really true, at least no all the time. That value seems to fluctuate. I believe there is a record of GoogleGuy suggesting H3's are the most heavily weighed. However, I've seen testing pages (at times) where all things being equal <bold> has even come in as the strongest.

Because this seems to fluctuate, I recommend just coding to standard and crafting the Header tags in accordance with what the W3C says. That'll ride you safely through any tweeks the search engines make and also keep you accessiblity friendly..

**Mr. Tech** · 28th April 2005, 03:24 PM

What do the W3C say about this? I cant seem to find anything in Google...

J.K. · 28th April 2005, 03:42 PM

Hey Tech..

The quickest way I know to find it is just to validate a page.

I'll use AListApart for an example. No doubt they will.. lol

Here's the link with "Outline" selected

W3C Validation Results

At the bottom of the page we see this:

Quote:

Below is an outline for this document, automatically generated from the heading tags (<h1> through <h6>.)

* ISSN: 1534-0295. 26 April 2005 – Issue No. 198

# Safari bug known
# Regrouping

If this does not look like a real outline, it is likely that the heading tags are not being used properly. (Headings should reflect the logical structure of the document; they should not be used simply to add emphasis, or to change the font size.)

Granted, that's not quite the same as citing a recommendation from the W3C. I'm afraid I don't have that bookmarked. However, my take on it is that as long as you're following a logical flow (e.g. not jumping from h1 to h5, or beginning with h4 and then going back to h1) you're doing it right.

On an aside, it's occured to me that there might also be a question as to whether we need <p> content beneath each Heading. I know of many pages that have been optimized by stacking two headers together with no paragraph text in between and in fact, I'm using that on a site I'm working on right now. It just fit in with the layout.

Not sure if it's right W3C, but I like it and oddly it brought a lot more structural logic to the document.

J.K. · 28th April 2005, 03:48 PM

Hmmm.. just noticed..

He's got two H2's.... (safari and regrouping and no H1...

J.K. · 28th April 2005, 03:55 PM

I'm gonna get my post count up really high like this.. lol

http://www.alistapart.com/

Taking a look at it again it seems structurally to me what's ironically missing here is a H1 around this

ISSN: 1534-0295. 26 April 2005 – Issue No. 198

Wouldn't help him out SEO wise, but W3C wise I think that'd be right..

Check it out -

**Peter Sinclair** · 28th April 2005, 04:13 PM

thank you J.K., that has cleared things up for me. i suppose these tags are losing their value over the years..... it's probably a good thing.

I'll code it in accordance with W3C.

Thanks buddy