27

Is is true <h1> tag should not have more than 1 on every page for SEO?

Every pages on the header, it includes and <h1> tag. Website Name which show an image from logo class, like this:

<div id="header">
  <h1 class="logo">
     <a href="#">Website Name</a>
  </h1>
</div>

and I also include <h1> on the contact page, help, etc and article page for example:

<h1>Contact Us</h1>
<h1>Name of the Article Title here</h1>

On the homepage, it just has one <h1> for the logo Site Name... other pages have 2 <h1> tags

Improve this question
1
  • Used to do exactly that :) Now, the logo and name has its own style and each page gets an individual title.
    – Itai
    Commented Jun 25, 2011 at 21:31

10 Answers 10

Reset to default
21

It is very common saying, that <h1> should be on page just once. Matt Cutts (Google engineer) is explaining it right here: YouTube - More than one H1 on a page: good or bad?

So if it is logical for your page to have more just use them - no real penalty for this. Unless you have tens of <h1>s on page and nothing else. That could be little suspicious ;-)

Improve this answer
8

Yes, you will get most out of SEO if you have a single h1 tag on each page.

Having a h1 tag that corresponds with the title of the page will increase the weight of the title somewhat. How important this is depends on the search engine, i.e. some secret formula that they use to determine what's important on the page.

Not having a h1 tag or having multiple h1 tags isn't a big deal, your pages will still be indexed pretty well, but if you really want to squeeze the last out of SEO you should use a single h1 tag.

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    do you have any references for these assertions? if it's from your own experience, I believe you :) Just wondering if you know of any other sources.
    – John Bachir
    Commented Jun 23, 2014 at 20:27
  • 2
    @JohnBachir: That's from reading different sources and applying that (and plenty of other things) to get really good SEO results, so it's mostly own experience.
    – Guffa
    Commented Jun 23, 2014 at 22:05
5

Note that HTML5 makes these titles relative to the current section, so they regain their true semantic meaning, and make them relative to their context (you can have a h1 tag in a side block, for example).

Now, you might not use HTML5, and I don't know if search engines take it in account yet. If it is important for you, it might be more prudent to play it safe and use only h2 as main title, keeping the h1 to repeat the title tag (well, that's what I usually do).

Improve this answer
0

Is is true <h1> tag should not have more than 1 on every page for SEO?

No, not that i know of. Headlines are structured in a hierarchy, whereas the top level may contain of multiple elements. So feel free to use several <h1> tags to indicate the main topics of your content if your page contains more than one.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    No doubt you can put more than one <h1> in your code. But the question is about the SEO aspect. And as far as I know, it's not recommended to have too much <h1> tags. When there is single <h1>, it's content will be rated higher.
    – Oleg G.
    Commented Jun 25, 2011 at 10:16
0

<h1> tags are essentially the title of your pages. It should tell a user what the page is about. If you have more then one <h1> tag on a page then your page is probably doing too much and should be broken up into two or more pages. This allows each page to be focused on one main topic which makes it easier for users to understand and, not coincidentally, helps the search engines understand it too (in other words it is optimized for one topic which is good for your SEO).

Improve this answer
1
  • As the asker shows, one h1 is for the site name and the other is for the page title, so they are not doing too much. It is very common to have both a site name and a page title for a web page.
    – Tyler Liu
    Commented Jan 13, 2013 at 2:44
0

It always helps to think about the users first - Every page should discuss a unique subject matter and therefore one heading should be enough to describe that subject matter. Hope this helps.

Improve this answer
0

Technically - you can have as many H1's as you'd like.

Semantically - it's wrong, as a page should only have 1 main title. You can use H2, H3, etc for subtitles.

Remember, H1's were not invented for SEO, but for content formatting. Think about magazines - each article only has (1) primary header (h1) that describes the content of the page. Then a sub-heading (h2) that explains a bit more, then sub-headings (h3) to breakup the content, etc.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    kind of true... imagine a magazine page with several articles on it. each one would have it's own "h" structure. all the info on the page is not necessarily related or intended to be scoped together
    – Jason
    Commented Feb 7, 2012 at 0:18
0

It looks like with HTML5 each page element can have its own H1 with the page hierarchy ranking the H1 in accordance with the other ones e.g. a H1 within the article tag might rank higher than one within the section tag. I have no idea what the impact would be of using HTML5 and multiple H1's now in a web build. I would assume the doc type should tell browsers not to punish the multiple HTML5 H1's?

With the addition of WAI-ARIA, not sure if this will impact SEO in the future, you can give more focus - for screen readers - to different elements on a page e.g. role="banner" would indicate the primary heading on a page (only one allowed per page), while role="heading" would indicate a sub header. If WAI-ARIA does start to have an impact on SEO in the future the roles might help give focus to the more important headings on a page.

Improve this answer
0

1 h1 tag or 2 h1 tags?

I think the google bot will combine all the keywords in "h1 tags" on that specific page

So if, we have two h1 tags sentence, it will given the same weight age in SEO

"Its like why cannot we have two door for the same room". An YES we can have two H1 tags.

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    Why do you "think" that? Do you have any sort of evidence for this?
    – John Conde ♦
    Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 12:35
  • @John Conde - I think this coz I think, google has been more complex than what it look.
    – user465641
    Commented Dec 2, 2011 at 8:59
  • @itpian.com excellent explanation. With such deduction you can come up with any argument you want.
    – Salvador Dali
    Commented May 1, 2014 at 4:25
0

For my two cents. Logos etc that don't change from page to page should not be a header item. It detracts from the page's unique quality. I would say there are cases where more than one h1 tag is warranted, but this is not one of them.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.