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Proper Use of H1 tag Debate (8 posts)

  1. Todd Budnikas
    Key Master

    I've been thinking a lot lately and reading on some sites lately about the debate of where and in what context to use the H1 tag on sites. To me, always wrapping your logo in an H1 is inaccurate in describing the page you're viewing. In most cases, I believe that the heading for a page should be accurate to it's content, and in most regards, that is also what the spec says. I'm however toying with the idea of using an H1 around the logo on the homepage of a site, and then removing it on any subsequent page and reserving it for page title. Curious to hear how other feel and implement.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  2. aboveaveragejoe
    Administrator

    Honestly, I've been dropping the logo in the CSS, wrapping a text description of what the logo says in the H1, then creating all the awesome CSS to make it a home link since I've worked in XHTML. I was also taught in the transition to XHTML/CSS/Standards-Compliant mark-up that the H1 should only be used once. But, in looking up this topic before, I've noted a variety of opinions and practices. A List Apart, for example, uses the H1 for the logo on the homepage then moves to H2... Their interior pages/stories, however, use the H1 on both the logo AND the main title for the page. Is this the correct example to follow? I'm not sure, but one would hope. Again, other thoughts/insights?

    Posted 1 year ago #

  3. Ricky Irvine
    Member

    Ohhh good question. (Todd, I noticed you used h1 for article heads on this site, and wondered about it.) Like a lot of folks, and by default, I've been using h1 for identity and moving to h2 for article titles. I haven't read any arguments for either method, so I don't know all the pros and cons. Though, some questions come to mind:

    Are we mostly concerned with sight-impaired visitors using screen readers? Are there different emphases or meanings placed on h1 vs h2 in a screen reader? For most of us who are not impaired, it seems like h1 for the identity wouldn't matter if you have an actual image in there, and on the other hand it might matter a lot if you don't (sans CSS).

    So maybe, ultimately, we're just trying to keep our nose clean and focus on getting the technicals right just for the sake of it. And maybe it's a contextual matter.

    Suddenly h1 for the article head is making more sense to me. Identity is certainly not equal to Heading.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  4. aboveaveragejoe
    Administrator

    Yeah, I would think there are some usability issues attached with this, too. And I would be curious to know if it, in any way, affects SEO.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  5. Ricky Irvine
    Member

    A quick search yields The Search Engine Herald (don't know anything about their credibility) saying that the h1 should reflect the title tag (article title, not identity title) for better SEO.

    It seems sensible to agree, but I haven't see any testing nor done any myself.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  6. Todd Budnikas
    Key Master

    i most recently was reading through the topic posted by Roger Johansson at 456 Berea Street:
    http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200901/headings_heading_hierarchy_and_document_outlines/

    topic is closed for comments, but some good discussion there. However, in the end, i was still left unclear as to the approach that makes the most sense to me. I'm not so worried about screen readers, as I am considering search engines, and keeping semantically accurate. My gut tells me that CNN as the heading for every page of their site doesn't tell me what the difference between the politics page and the world news page.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  7. Bryan V.
    Member

    I read the 456 Berea Street article, and see where they're coming from on the suggested solution, but I'm with Joe about not repeating H1 tags in your document. I haven't been as stringent about 508 validation lately, but it's probably best to stick with one H1 and degrade from there. If it's potentially confusing to someone using a screen reader, it's more than likely confusing to a Google or Yahoo bot.

    I searched the official Google Blog for "h1 tag" to see if I noticed anything about their search preference, and only came up with this:
    http://code.google.com/p/doctype/wiki/ArticleSemanticsOfH1

    Posted 1 year ago #

  8. Todd Budnikas
    Key Master

    quick follow-up. Viget Studios posted a video from Google software engineer Matt Cutts on the Google Webmaster Central Channel that seems to quell the debate:
    http://www.viget.com/inspire/ending-the-great-h1-debate/

    I suppose we never really got too much into the debate of if you can use more than 1, it was always a debate of should it be used for the logo or a heading. Both, if you deem it necessary.

    Posted 1 year ago #

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