Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1? - ADMIN
More than one H1 on a page: good or bad? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM On 20/10/2009, at 1:09 PM, Russ Weakley wrote: ADMIN Hi all, The conversation has been great, but we are now heading into heated discussion and direct attacks - which is unacceptable. Please remain civil and receptive or the thread will be closed. Thanks Russ (civility police) *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
On Oct 18, 2009, at 10:06 AM, Christian Fagan wrote:
Agree with pretty much everything below.
There seems to be no compelling reason to wrap the logo in a
H1but there seems to be no compelling reason not to.
Quite a number of my clients have taglines in their logos, and often
times, the tagline is part of the keywords they wanted to target. I
see this an compelling reason to wrap the logo in a h1.
I almost never use logo in inline image but background. If client
wants to place a logo in the footer, then yes, this one uses inline
image.
h1Fresh Green: Fresh ideas for green living/h1
h1 {background: url(logo.png) no-repeat}
Also, for an eCommerce site, the first heading (if H1 is not used in
logo) usually is category name, product name (*), my cart, sitemap.
* Product name is most important compare with category name, name
cart, sitemap, about us, contact usI can serve a different
template to use H1 for product name . As for other pages, to my
clients, their taglines are more importance than category names such
as outdoor, indoor, gift ideas, about us.
None of the replies that against using h1 for logo can convince me nor
my clients that having company name and tagline on every page is
illegal, wrong, unsemantical. There are chopsticks users, there are
fork and spoon users and they are hand users. I am a chopstick user
and you a fork and spoon user and who are we to say that the hand user
is illegal and wrong? I eat with my right hand when I visit India and
Nepal and when I eat with my muslim friends. And I use fork and spoon
when I am with friends who use only this combination or visit non-
Asian restaurant.
tee
***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org
***
RE: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
No-one has said there is anything wrong with including a tagline on every
page.
It is a bad idea however if you make it a H1 and then have that repeat on
every page.
Do you include a second H1 on the page too? No?
When you add a background image to a H1 - you may style it to look like an
image/logo but the source code only shows a heading. If the text in the
heading is still visible to your visitors and you dont use this on multiple
pages (i.e. only on the homepage) then this is fine.
If however you have an img and wrap it with a H1 then that makes no sense
at all no matter what cutlery you are ;)
Darren Lovelock
Munky Online Web Design
http://www.munkyonline.co.uk
T: +44 (0)20-8816-8893
-Original Message-
From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On
Behalf Of tee
Sent: 19 October 2009 18:50
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
On Oct 18, 2009, at 10:06 AM, Christian Fagan wrote:
Agree with pretty much everything below.
There seems to be no compelling reason to wrap the logo in a H1but
there seems to be no compelling reason not to.
Quite a number of my clients have taglines in their logos, and often times,
the tagline is part of the keywords they wanted to target. I see this an
compelling reason to wrap the logo in a h1.
I almost never use logo in inline image but background. If client wants to
place a logo in the footer, then yes, this one uses inline image.
h1Fresh Green: Fresh ideas for green living/h1
h1 {background: url(logo.png) no-repeat}
Also, for an eCommerce site, the first heading (if H1 is not used in
logo) usually is category name, product name (*), my cart, sitemap.
* Product name is most important compare with category name, name cart,
sitemap, about us, contact usI can serve a different template to use H1
for product name . As for other pages, to my clients, their taglines are
more importance than category names such as outdoor, indoor, gift
ideas, about us.
None of the replies that against using h1 for logo can convince me nor my
clients that having company name and tagline on every page is illegal,
wrong, unsemantical. There are chopsticks users, there are fork and spoon
users and they are hand users. I am a chopstick user and you a fork and
spoon user and who are we to say that the hand user is illegal and wrong? I
eat with my right hand when I visit India and Nepal and when I eat with my
muslim friends. And I use fork and spoon when I am with friends who use only
this combination or visit non- Asian restaurant.
tee
***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org
***
***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org
***
Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
On Oct 19, 2009, at 11:45 AM, Darren Lovelock wrote: No-one has said there is anything wrong with including a tagline on every page. My point wasn't arguing that someone said it's wrong to t include a tagline on every page. It's more about this: in some situations, logo use in the website, isn't the same as it's used in conventional manner that we see on print media. I view that Page title is an important element for a page, considering that not everyone visits a site always lands in the homepage first, a page within a website can be treated as a unique and single 'entity', in this sense, I don't see it inappropriate to have logo and tagline repeated in every page wrapped in H1, when the page title can do the work. Example: I see this equally bad About Us page Page title: About Us - company name H1: About Us as you see this bad idea Page title: About Us H1 : logo with tagline It is a bad idea however if you make it a H1 and then have that repeat on every page. It's bad idea because you and I and are standing on different sides of the hill, and the view you and I see are different. So there is no bad or better in an absolute point of view. I use h1 for most important heading when I consider the logo doesn't deserve H1. Do you include a second H1 on the page too? No? A bit arrogant question. Guess you think people who use h1 for logo don't know anything about semantic markup :) tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
RE: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
Do you include a second H1 on the page too? No? A bit arrogant question. Guess you think people who use h1 for logo don't know anything about semantic markup :) Not really considering that's the topic of the discussion. The orginal post is about placing an h1 around the logo and then using an additional H1 in the page. As I said in an earlier email. The reason why logos were being used with H1 tags is because they are usually placed at the start of a document and therefore they could be used to maintain the correct page structure when a website was using a multi-column layout. Wrapping a logo with an H1 purely for SEO purposes is not a good practice. Repeating keyword heavy titles sitewide is also bad SEO. Darren Lovelock Munky Online Web Design http://www.munkyonline.co.uk T: +44 (0)20-8816-8893 -Original Message- From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of tee Sent: 19 October 2009 20:32 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1? On Oct 19, 2009, at 11:45 AM, Darren Lovelock wrote: No-one has said there is anything wrong with including a tagline on every page. My point wasn't arguing that someone said it's wrong to t include a tagline on every page. It's more about this: in some situations, logo use in the website, isn't the same as it's used in conventional manner that we see on print media. I view that Page title is an important element for a page, considering that not everyone visits a site always lands in the homepage first, a page within a website can be treated as a unique and single 'entity', in this sense, I don't see it inappropriate to have logo and tagline repeated in every page wrapped in H1, when the page title can do the work. Example: I see this equally bad About Us page Page title: About Us - company name H1: About Us as you see this bad idea Page title: About Us H1 : logo with tagline It is a bad idea however if you make it a H1 and then have that repeat on every page. It's bad idea because you and I and are standing on different sides of the hill, and the view you and I see are different. So there is no bad or better in an absolute point of view. I use h1 for most important heading when I consider the logo doesn't deserve H1. Do you include a second H1 on the page too? No? A bit arrogant question. Guess you think people who use h1 for logo don't know anything about semantic markup :) tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 2:32 PM, tee weblis...@gmail.com wrote: Do you include a second H1 on the page too? No? A bit arrogant question. Guess you think people who use h1 for logo don't know anything about semantic markup :) tee, thry this on for size. from the w3c html elements about what an h1 reference is. http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#edef-H1 cheers, dwain -- Fear of the devil is one way of doubting God. - Kahlil Gibran *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1? - ADMIN
ADMIN Hi all, The conversation has been great, but we are now heading into heated discussion and direct attacks - which is unacceptable. Please remain civil and receptive or the thread will be closed. Thanks Russ (civility police) *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
Agree with pretty much everything below. There seems to be no compelling reason to wrap the logo in a H1but there seems to be no compelling reason not to. I'm probably swaying towards not wrapping the logo in a H1 any moreI doubt it will have much effect on SEO anyway. One final point regarding this topic... *Google wraps their logo in a H1* http://www.google.com.au/#hl=ensource=hpq=searchbtnG=Google+Searchmeta=aq=foq=searchfp=2b6a54a9ce7131a8 I need a coffee... * Christian Fagan * Fagan Design * fagandesign.com.au * p: (+613) 9314-1841 Darren Lovelock wrote: Enough Darren bashing LOL My apologies for attacking so head-on but it looked to me that your only intention was to attempt to boost your website rankings and that is something that Google definitely advises against - build websites for your visitors and not the search engines. You mind telling me which of the websites you referenced include more than one H1? That's what this discussion is about right? Also most of them had a lot of html errors so not exactly good examples of great web design. Apart from the BBC website of course - great website ;) You said that you would include an H1 wrapped around the logo AND and an additional H1 didn't you? You wanted to know its effect on SEO? Multiple H1's dilute the relevance of the page and if stuffed with keywords will only hinder a websites rankings rather than help them. That is why the SEO you spoke to would recommend to use just *one* H1. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-checklist-using-page-headings-correctly/7723/ The reason why designers have had a need to place an H1 around the logo is because the H1 should be first in a documents heading structure, it was to comply with WCAG guidelines. Due to multiple column layouts a H2 could easily come before the H1. Read more here - http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200901/headings_heading_hierarchy_and_document_outlines/ Your reason however was because you believe the logo to be of equal importance as the H1 lower down the page (for rankings?), not to meet accessibility guidelines. My opinion is a logo is not a heading, it is a logo. I agree however there should be a tag to give the logo more precedence on the page but a heading is not the correct tag. A *logo* is a graphical element (ideogram http://www.answers.com/topic/ideogram, symbol http://www.answers.com/topic/symbol, emblem http://www.answers.com/topic/emblem, icon http://www.answers.com/topic/icon, sign http://www.answers.com/topic/sign) that, together with its *logotype* (a uniquely set and arranged typeface http://www.answers.com/topic/typeface) form a trademark http://www.answers.com/topic/trademark or commercial brand http://www.answers.com/topic/brand. Typically, a logo's design is for immediate recognition.^[1] http://www.answers.com/logo#cite_note-wheeler_dbi_pg4-0 The logo is one aspect of a company's commercial brand http://www.answers.com/topic/brand, or economic or academic entity, and its shapes, colors, fonts, and images usually are different from others in a similar market. Logos are also used to identify organizations and other non-commercial entities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo By using microformats or the RDFA doctype you can identify the logo in a vcard along with your company details. Darren Lovelock Munky Online Web Design http://www.munkyonline.co.uk http://www.munkyonline.co.uk/ T: +44 (0)20-8816-8893 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
Hi Christian, Google also use table layout for their pages, inline styles, don't use labels with input fields and so on. The fact that they use H1 around the logo just shows that they don't require SEO work. ;-) So your mention of Google using H1 around the logo does not illustrate anything. Thanks, Jason On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 6:06 PM, Christian Fagan c...@fagandesign.com.auwrote: Agree with pretty much everything below. There seems to be no compelling reason to wrap the logo in a H1but there seems to be no compelling reason not to. I'm probably swaying towards not wrapping the logo in a H1 any moreI doubt it will have much effect on SEO anyway. One final point regarding this topic... *Google wraps their logo in a H1* http://www.google.com.au/#hl=ensource=hpq=searchbtnG=Google+Searchmeta=aq=foq=searchfp=2b6a54a9ce7131a8 I need a coffee... - Christian Fagan - Fagan Design - fagandesign.com.au - p: (+613) 9314-1841 Darren Lovelock wrote: Enough Darren bashing LOL My apologies for attacking so head-on but it looked to me that your only intention was to attempt to boost your website rankings and that is something that Google definitely advises against - build websites for your visitors and not the search engines. You mind telling me which of the websites you referenced include more than one H1? That's what this discussion is about right? Also most of them had a lot of html errors so not exactly good examples of great web design. Apart from the BBC website of course - great website ;) You said that you would include an H1 wrapped around the logo AND and an additional H1 didn't you? You wanted to know its effect on SEO? Multiple H1's dilute the relevance of the page and if stuffed with keywords will only hinder a websites rankings rather than help them. That is why the SEO you spoke to would recommend to use just *one* H1. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-checklist-using-page-headings-correctly/7723/ The reason why designers have had a need to place an H1 around the logo is because the H1 should be first in a documents heading structure, it was to comply with WCAG guidelines. Due to multiple column layouts a H2 could easily come before the H1. Read more here - http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200901/headings_heading_hierarchy_and_document_outlines/ Your reason however was because you believe the logo to be of equal importance as the H1 lower down the page (for rankings?), not to meet accessibility guidelines. My opinion is a logo is not a heading, it is a logo. I agree however there should be a tag to give the logo more precedence on the page but a heading is not the correct tag. A *logo* is a graphical element (ideogramhttp://www.answers.com/topic/ideogram, symbol http://www.answers.com/topic/symbol, emblemhttp://www.answers.com/topic/emblem, icon http://www.answers.com/topic/icon, signhttp://www.answers.com/topic/sign) that, together with its *logotype* (a uniquely set and arranged typefacehttp://www.answers.com/topic/typeface) form a trademark http://www.answers.com/topic/trademark or commercial brand http://www.answers.com/topic/brand. Typically, a logo's design is for immediate recognition.[1]http://www.answers.com/logo#cite_note-wheeler_dbi_pg4-0The logo is one aspect of a company's commercial brand http://www.answers.com/topic/brand, or economic or academic entity, and its shapes, colors, fonts, and images usually are different from others in a similar market. Logos are also used to identify organizations and other non-commercial entities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo By using microformats or the RDFA doctype you can identify the logo in a vcard along with your company details. Darren Lovelock Munky Online Web Design http://www.munkyonline.co.uk T: +44 (0)20-8816-8893 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** -- Jason Grant BSc, MSc CEO, Flexewebs Ltd. www.flexewebs.com ja...@flexewebs.com +44 (0)7748 591 770 Company no.: 5587469 www.flexewebs.com/semantix www.twitter.com/flexewebs www.linkedin.com/in/flexewebs *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
Return Receipt Your Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? document: wasJulia Dalbo/ACT/IMMI/AU received by: at:19/10/2009 08:53:20 AM Important Notice: If you have received this email by mistake, please advise the sender and delete the message and attachments immediately. This email, including attachments, may contain confidential, sensitive, legally privileged and/or copyright information. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. DIAC respects your privacy and has obligations under the Privacy Act 1988. The official departmental privacy policy can be viewed on the department's website at www.immi.gov.au. See: http://www.immi.gov.au/functional/privacy.htm - *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
Return Receipt Your Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? document: wasLisa Kerrigan/StateDevPolicy/DSD received by: at:19/10/2009 09:06:47 AM * Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development,Government of Victoria, Victoria, Australia. This e-mail and any attachments may contain privileged and confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not distribute reproduce this e-mail the attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify us by return e-mail. *- *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
Thanks for all your responsesI didn't expect this topic to be so clouded. For me and this particular site I'm working on, the problem still remainswhile Jason's article is well written, it doesn't use any *governing body (eg. W3C/Google) references* as basis for it's conclusions...it is merely an opinion. An Information Architecture opinion. Sure, I agree with alot of the article and completely understand the opinion but it is still.an opinion. Semantic structure is very much about opinion and interpretation. My personal interpretation of this common problem was (and still is) that there is no reason why multiple H1s can't be used on one page *AND no reason* (semantic/IA/SEO/common sense) why an H1 can't wrap the logo. My interpretation is that it is logical and important. Having said that, I was ready to heed the advice of many on this thread and remove the H1 around the logo as it seemed to be the general consensusbut there seems to be a number of people who disagree and I'm still yet to read anything from Google or W3C that says it is, indeed, bad practice. Google, themselves (as the youTube video explains) says it is *not bad *practice. H1 denotes a heading. This I acknowledge. From a semantic point of view, maybe the logo is not a heading at all.or maybe it is the premier heading. Depends on whether you view a web page as a plain text document or an interactive piece of media. In an interactive page, can a heading not be *something other than text? A logo perhaps? * To answer a few pointed questions: Maybe they should listen to the SEO expert they've already spoken to... - from Darren Lovelock. I generally make a point of not believing everything I read or hear, so excuse me for having an opinion different to that of a so-called SEO expert and following up my opinion. It seems, outside of Google index engineers, no-one really knows exactly what effect page elements and content have on search results...SEO experts seem to be professionals who have come up with a best guess system. In reference to: Did they see it on some 'SEO's website and think 'they must know what they are doing so I'll copy them'? LOL Yes Darren, I have seen it on many sites, many large sites that spend tens of thousands of $$$ every year on SEO. Are you suggesting that your knowledge of web design/IA/SEO come purely from W3C guidelines and Google spec sheets? Are you suggesting you are not influenced by the design/IA/semantic structure/SEO methods of massive online companies? Wow, that is impressivethe purity of your knowledge must be profound. It must be amazing to talk with you one-on-one. Some examples for you to mull over: Top tier (pretty big) Australian sites: - www.theage.com.au - www.smh.com.au - www.mycareer.com.au - www.domain.com.au - www.drive.com.au International sites: - http://www.bbc.co.uk/ I love this line: ...using the the method I and many other good web designers have adopted: Anyways, enough Darren bashing Re: Adam Martin (writing after having a few afternoon bevvies in Thailand): In saying this I don't believe in focussing on SEO - no point in getting the search engines find you if you only lose the customer when they come to your site. I always focus on the customer and the information they want to find. Customer Optimisation will always pay off much more than SEO can ever dream of - 1 qualified customers is much better than 100 non qualified. I love the way this is written - definitely puts things in perspective Thankyou all for your responses. Many well spoken and informative people on this list, which I appreciate. * Christian Fagan * Fagan Design * fagandesign.com.au * p: (+613) 9314-1841 Oliver Boermans wrote: 2009/10/16 Jason Grant ja...@flexewebs.com: Ollie you are threading a dangerous ground there. Explained here why you are wrong: http://www.flexewebs.com/semantix/semantic-uses-of-h1-h2-h6-html-tags/ Good link for this thread Jason. Although I don’t understand why the company name would be inappropriate semantically to use as the h1 on the home page. The home page represents the company. If I Google for a company with it’s name as a keyword I would expect to find their home page. Using it on every page of the site is a different matter. For this to work the 'logo' would be text which would be styled with CSS to look like the logo in a browser. As an alternative I expect the alt text of an image would likely suffice (not so sure on this one). To put on my hat with horns to present a possible issue with my own suggestion; I would point out that using a different structure between pages of a site can be confusing for a screenreader user; But then, home pages often are a different structure to topic-specific sub pages anyway so I don’t expect anyone would get upset about it. I’ve been doing this for a few years now so if I’m wrong I’m keen to be corrected! … The defence
Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
Once again I have to come back to this great thread - one of the best discussions in the long time on this mailing list: - BBC uses H1 on the logo on the home page, but around the article title on article specific page (e.g. view-source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8312126.stm) - Also worthy of note is that behind the logo on homepage they use the full phrase of 'British Broadcasting Corporation' following the CSS swapping technique that was outlined - Everything we post here is an opinion of course - Following my recommendation(s) I think will achieve the best of all worlds for a given site - I agree that '1 qualified customer is better than 100 unqualified ones' - Nowadays we really need to take into account mobile device interoperability and usability and should also consider screen reader users wherever relevant I am going to update my post to reflect some of the exceptions to the rule we have discussed here, so that they are not lost in the long term. Thanks people and have a nice day, Jason On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 12:18 PM, Christian Fagan c...@fagandesign.com.auwrote: Thanks for all your responsesI didn't expect this topic to be so clouded. For me and this particular site I'm working on, the problem still remainswhile Jason's article is well written, it doesn't use any *governing body (eg. W3C/Google) references* as basis for it's conclusions...it is merely an opinion. An Information Architecture opinion. Sure, I agree with alot of the article and completely understand the opinion but it is still.an opinion. Semantic structure is very much about opinion and interpretation. My personal interpretation of this common problem was (and still is) that there is no reason why multiple H1s can't be used on one page *AND no reason*(semantic/IA/SEO/common sense) why an H1 can't wrap the logo. My interpretation is that it is logical and important. Having said that, I was ready to heed the advice of many on this thread and remove the H1 around the logo as it seemed to be the general consensusbut there seems to be a number of people who disagree and I'm still yet to read anything from Google or W3C that says it is, indeed, bad practice. Google, themselves (as the youTube video explains) says it is *not bad *practice. H1 denotes a heading. This I acknowledge. From a semantic point of view, maybe the logo is not a heading at all.or maybe it is the premier heading. Depends on whether you view a web page as a plain text document or an interactive piece of media. In an interactive page, can a heading not be *something other than text? A logo perhaps? * To answer a few pointed questions: Maybe they should listen to the SEO expert they've already spoken to... - from Darren Lovelock. I generally make a point of not believing everything I read or hear, so excuse me for having an opinion different to that of a so-called SEO expert and following up my opinion. It seems, outside of Google index engineers, no-one really knows exactly what effect page elements and content have on search results...SEO experts seem to be professionals who have come up with a best guess system. In reference to: Did they see it on some 'SEO's website and think 'they must know what they are doing so I'll copy them'? LOL Yes Darren, I have seen it on many sites, many large sites that spend tens of thousands of $$$ every year on SEO. Are you suggesting that your knowledge of web design/IA/SEO come purely from W3C guidelines and Google spec sheets? Are you suggesting you are not influenced by the design/IA/semantic structure/SEO methods of massive online companies? Wow, that is impressivethe purity of your knowledge must be profound. It must be amazing to talk with you one-on-one. Some examples for you to mull over: Top tier (pretty big) Australian sites: - www.theage.com.au - www.smh.com.au - www.mycareer.com.au - www.domain.com.au - www.drive.com.au International sites: - http://www.bbc.co.uk/ I love this line: ...using the the method I and many other good web designers have adopted: Anyways, enough Darren bashing Re: Adam Martin (writing after having a few afternoon bevvies in Thailand): In saying this I don't believe in focussing on SEO - no point in getting the search engines find you if you only lose the customer when they come to your site. I always focus on the customer and the information they want to find. Customer Optimisation will always pay off much more than SEO can ever dream of - 1 qualified customers is much better than 100 non qualified. I love the way this is written - definitely puts things in perspective Thankyou all for your responses. Many well spoken and informative people on this list, which I appreciate. - Christian Fagan - Fagan Design - fagandesign.com.au - p: (+613) 9314-1841 Oliver Boermans wrote: 2009/10/16 Jason Grant
Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
Oh yes, and let's not forget that Google isn't the only search engine on the planet too. :-) On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 1:40 PM, Jason Grant ja...@flexewebs.com wrote: Once again I have to come back to this great thread - one of the best discussions in the long time on this mailing list: - BBC uses H1 on the logo on the home page, but around the article title on article specific page (e.g. view-source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8312126.stm) - Also worthy of note is that behind the logo on homepage they use the full phrase of 'British Broadcasting Corporation' following the CSS swapping technique that was outlined - Everything we post here is an opinion of course - Following my recommendation(s) I think will achieve the best of all worlds for a given site - I agree that '1 qualified customer is better than 100 unqualified ones' - Nowadays we really need to take into account mobile device interoperability and usability and should also consider screen reader users wherever relevant I am going to update my post to reflect some of the exceptions to the rule we have discussed here, so that they are not lost in the long term. Thanks people and have a nice day, Jason On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 12:18 PM, Christian Fagan c...@fagandesign.com.auwrote: Thanks for all your responsesI didn't expect this topic to be so clouded. For me and this particular site I'm working on, the problem still remainswhile Jason's article is well written, it doesn't use any *governing body (eg. W3C/Google) references* as basis for it's conclusions...it is merely an opinion. An Information Architecture opinion. Sure, I agree with alot of the article and completely understand the opinion but it is still.an opinion. Semantic structure is very much about opinion and interpretation. My personal interpretation of this common problem was (and still is) that there is no reason why multiple H1s can't be used on one page *AND no reason*(semantic/IA/SEO/common sense) why an H1 can't wrap the logo. My interpretation is that it is logical and important. Having said that, I was ready to heed the advice of many on this thread and remove the H1 around the logo as it seemed to be the general consensusbut there seems to be a number of people who disagree and I'm still yet to read anything from Google or W3C that says it is, indeed, bad practice. Google, themselves (as the youTube video explains) says it is *not bad *practice. H1 denotes a heading. This I acknowledge. From a semantic point of view, maybe the logo is not a heading at all.or maybe it is the premier heading. Depends on whether you view a web page as a plain text document or an interactive piece of media. In an interactive page, can a heading not be *something other than text? A logo perhaps? * To answer a few pointed questions: Maybe they should listen to the SEO expert they've already spoken to... - from Darren Lovelock. I generally make a point of not believing everything I read or hear, so excuse me for having an opinion different to that of a so-called SEO expert and following up my opinion. It seems, outside of Google index engineers, no-one really knows exactly what effect page elements and content have on search results...SEO experts seem to be professionals who have come up with a best guess system. In reference to: Did they see it on some 'SEO's website and think 'they must know what they are doing so I'll copy them'? LOL Yes Darren, I have seen it on many sites, many large sites that spend tens of thousands of $$$ every year on SEO. Are you suggesting that your knowledge of web design/IA/SEO come purely from W3C guidelines and Google spec sheets? Are you suggesting you are not influenced by the design/IA/semantic structure/SEO methods of massive online companies? Wow, that is impressivethe purity of your knowledge must be profound. It must be amazing to talk with you one-on-one. Some examples for you to mull over: Top tier (pretty big) Australian sites: - www.theage.com.au - www.smh.com.au - www.mycareer.com.au - www.domain.com.au - www.drive.com.au International sites: - http://www.bbc.co.uk/ I love this line: ...using the the method I and many other good web designers have adopted: Anyways, enough Darren bashing Re: Adam Martin (writing after having a few afternoon bevvies in Thailand): In saying this I don't believe in focussing on SEO - no point in getting the search engines find you if you only lose the customer when they come to your site. I always focus on the customer and the information they want to find. Customer Optimisation will always pay off much more than SEO can ever dream of - 1 qualified customers is much better than 100 non qualified. I love the way this is written - definitely puts things in perspective Thankyou all for your responses. Many well spoken and informative people
RE: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
Enough Darren bashing LOL My apologies for attacking so head-on but it looked to me that your only intention was to attempt to boost your website rankings and that is something that Google definitely advises against - build websites for your visitors and not the search engines. You mind telling me which of the websites you referenced include more than one H1? That's what this discussion is about right? Also most of them had a lot of html errors so not exactly good examples of great web design. Apart from the BBC website of course - great website ;) You said that you would include an H1 wrapped around the logo AND and an additional H1 didn't you? You wanted to know its effect on SEO? Multiple H1's dilute the relevance of the page and if stuffed with keywords will only hinder a websites rankings rather than help them. That is why the SEO you spoke to would recommend to use just one H1. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-checklist-using-page-headings-correct ly/7723/ The reason why designers have had a need to place an H1 around the logo is because the H1 should be first in a documents heading structure, it was to comply with WCAG guidelines. Due to multiple column layouts a H2 could easily come before the H1. Read more here - http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200901/headings_heading_hierarchy_and_ document_outlines/ Your reason however was because you believe the logo to be of equal importance as the H1 lower down the page (for rankings?), not to meet accessibility guidelines. My opinion is a logo is not a heading, it is a logo. I agree however there should be a tag to give the logo more precedence on the page but a heading is not the correct tag. A logo is a graphical element ( http://www.answers.com/topic/ideogram ideogram, http://www.answers.com/topic/symbol symbol, http://www.answers.com/topic/emblem emblem, http://www.answers.com/topic/icon icon, http://www.answers.com/topic/sign sign) that, together with its logotype (a uniquely set and arranged http://www.answers.com/topic/typeface typeface) form a http://www.answers.com/topic/trademark trademark or commercial http://www.answers.com/topic/brand brand. Typically, a logo's design is for immediate recognition. http://www.answers.com/logo#cite_note-wheeler_dbi_pg4-0 [1] The logo is one aspect of a company's commercial http://www.answers.com/topic/brand brand, or economic or academic entity, and its shapes, colors, fonts, and images usually are different from others in a similar market. Logos are also used to identify organizations and other non-commercial entities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo By using microformats or the RDFA doctype you can identify the logo in a vcard along with your company details. Darren Lovelock Munky Online Web Design http://www.munkyonline.co.uk/ http://www.munkyonline.co.uk T: +44 (0)20-8816-8893 _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Christian Fagan Sent: 17 October 2009 12:18 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1? Thanks for all your responsesI didn't expect this topic to be so clouded. For me and this particular site I'm working on, the problem still remainswhile Jason's article is well written, it doesn't use any governing body (eg. W3C/Google) references as basis for it's conclusions...it is merely an opinion. An Information Architecture opinion. Sure, I agree with alot of the article and completely understand the opinion but it is still.an opinion. Semantic structure is very much about opinion and interpretation. My personal interpretation of this common problem was (and still is) that there is no reason why multiple H1s can't be used on one page AND no reason (semantic/IA/SEO/common sense) why an H1 can't wrap the logo. My interpretation is that it is logical and important. Having said that, I was ready to heed the advice of many on this thread and remove the H1 around the logo as it seemed to be the general consensusbut there seems to be a number of people who disagree and I'm still yet to read anything from Google or W3C that says it is, indeed, bad practice. Google, themselves (as the youTube video explains) says it is not bad practice. H1 denotes a heading. This I acknowledge. From a semantic point of view, maybe the logo is not a heading at all.or maybe it is the premier heading. Depends on whether you view a web page as a plain text document or an interactive piece of media. In an interactive page, can a heading not be something other than text? A logo perhaps? To answer a few pointed questions: Maybe they should listen to the SEO expert they've already spoken to... - from Darren Lovelock. I generally make a point of not believing everything I read or hear, so excuse me for having an opinion different to that of a so-called SEO expert and following up my opinion. It seems, outside of Google index engineers, no-one really knows exactly what effect page elements
Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
Well done Darren on debunking this one.I have also changed my blog post to reflect the fact that you might want to use H1 on the homepage around the logo, but that's the only place where I can possibly think it would make sense. Thanks, Jason On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Darren Lovelock i...@munkyonline.co.ukwrote: Enough Darren bashing LOL My apologies for attacking so head-on but it looked to me that your only intention was to attempt to boost your website rankings and that is something that Google definitely advises against - build websites for your visitors and not the search engines. You mind telling me which of the websites you referenced include more than one H1? That's what this discussion is about right? Also most of them had a lot of html errors so not exactly good examples of great web design. Apart from the BBC website of course - great website ;) You said that you would include an H1 wrapped around the logo AND and an additional H1 didn't you? You wanted to know its effect on SEO? Multiple H1's dilute the relevance of the page and if stuffed with keywords will only hinder a websites rankings rather than help them. That is why the SEO you spoke to would recommend to use just *one* H1. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-checklist-using-page-headings-correctly/7723/ The reason why designers have had a need to place an H1 around the logo is because the H1 should be first in a documents heading structure, it was to comply with WCAG guidelines. Due to multiple column layouts a H2 could easily come before the H1. Read more here - http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200901/headings_heading_hierarchy_and_document_outlines/ Your reason however was because you believe the logo to be of equal importance as the H1 lower down the page (for rankings?), not to meet accessibility guidelines. My opinion is a logo is not a heading, it is a logo. I agree however there should be a tag to give the logo more precedence on the page but a heading is not the correct tag. A *logo* is a graphical element (ideogramhttp://www.answers.com/topic/ideogram, symbol http://www.answers.com/topic/symbol, emblemhttp://www.answers.com/topic/emblem, icon http://www.answers.com/topic/icon, signhttp://www.answers.com/topic/sign) that, together with its *logotype* (a uniquely set and arranged typefacehttp://www.answers.com/topic/typeface) form a trademark http://www.answers.com/topic/trademark or commercial brand http://www.answers.com/topic/brand. Typically, a logo's design is for immediate recognition.[1]http://www.answers.com/logo#cite_note-wheeler_dbi_pg4-0The logo is one aspect of a company's commercial brand http://www.answers.com/topic/brand, or economic or academic entity, and its shapes, colors, fonts, and images usually are different from others in a similar market. Logos are also used to identify organizations and other non-commercial entities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo By using microformats or the RDFA doctype you can identify the logo in a vcard along with your company details. Darren Lovelock Munky Online Web Design http://www.munkyonline.co.uk T: +44 (0)20-8816-8893 -- *From:* li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] *On Behalf Of *Christian Fagan *Sent:* 17 October 2009 12:18 *To:* wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject:* Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1? Thanks for all your responsesI didn't expect this topic to be so clouded. For me and this particular site I'm working on, the problem still remainswhile Jason's article is well written, it doesn't use any *governing body (eg. W3C/Google) references* as basis for it's conclusions...it is merely an opinion. An Information Architecture opinion. Sure, I agree with alot of the article and completely understand the opinion but it is still.an opinion. Semantic structure is very much about opinion and interpretation. My personal interpretation of this common problem was (and still is) that there is no reason why multiple H1s can't be used on one page *AND no reason*(semantic/IA/SEO/common sense) why an H1 can't wrap the logo. My interpretation is that it is logical and important. Having said that, I was ready to heed the advice of many on this thread and remove the H1 around the logo as it seemed to be the general consensusbut there seems to be a number of people who disagree and I'm still yet to read anything from Google or W3C that says it is, indeed, bad practice. Google, themselves (as the youTube video explains) says it is *not bad *practice. H1 denotes a heading. This I acknowledge. From a semantic point of view, maybe the logo is not a heading at all.or maybe it is the premier heading. Depends on whether you view a web page as a plain text document or an interactive piece of media. In an interactive page, can a heading not be *something other than text? A logo perhaps
Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
EBS Admin - Matt doesn't say to use multiple H1s on the page, but says that you will not get penalised for using them (within reason) on a given page. Every site I ever worked on I had used only one H1 on and it still enjoys being on first page of Google. My formula, hence, does not only say Google or only Accessibility, but all of the points I mentioned. You say it is semantic to use more than one H1, but don't actually justify your reasoning behind it. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 3:02 PM, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net wrote: Jason, Thats clearly not the case, if you read the WIA guidlines then is advocates the use of multiple H1's, from an semantic point of view they make sense and in terms of SEO the make sense because every site we've built uses mutiple H1's and they enjoy page 1 results on Google. The video that Tim has just sent in is by Google and they say to use multiple H1's! -- *From:* li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] *On Behalf Of *Jason Grant *Sent:* 16 October 2009 14:48 *To:* wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject:* Re: More than one H1? (was [WSG] Out of Office AutoReply: WSG Digest) Tim To keep it really simple: Spec + SEO + Good IA + Semantics + Accessibility + Common sense == One H1 per page Hope this makes sense? Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.com wrote: OK, straight from Google Webmaster Central: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel(video from March 2009) Tim On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Jason Grant ja...@flexewebs.comwrote: Tim, Well done for reading the spec - it's always a must. However, Google came after the HTML4.01 spec and what Google wants we give it - so the 'only one H1 per page' guideline comes from SEO best practices as well as general semantics and IA best practices. So the spec does not tell you to use one H1 per page, but the spec is not the be all and end all of guidelines. Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 4:23 AM, Marilyn Langfeld m...@langfeldesigns.com wrote: ... H1 is reserved for the title of the page. In a document, at least, there's only one title, while there may be many first level headings. ... So H1 is, IMHO, not the first level header, but the T1, or main title of the page. A logo is never, IMHO again, the title of the page. Let's look at what the specification says; A heading element briefly describes the topic of the section it introduces. Heading information may be used by user agents, for example, to construct a table of contents for a document automatically. There are six levels of headings in HTML with H1http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#edef-H1 as the most important and H6http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#edef-H6 as the least. Visual browsers usually render more important headings in larger fonts than less important ones. http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#h-7.5.5 Nowhere does it say that H1s are for page titles or that there can be only 1 per page. In fact, the example shows two being used. ~ Tim *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** -- Jason Grant BSc, MSc CEO, Flexewebs Ltd. www.flexewebs.com ja...@flexewebs.com +44 (0)7748 591 770 Company no.: 5587469 www.flexewebs.com/semantix www.twitter.com/flexewebs www.linkedin.com/in/flexewebs *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** -- Jason Grant BSc, MSc CEO, Flexewebs Ltd. www.flexewebs.com ja...@flexewebs.com +44 (0)7748 591 770 Company no.: 5587469 www.flexewebs.com/semantix www.twitter.com/flexewebs www.linkedin.com/in/flexewebs *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org
RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
Okay so the justify, the first H1 is the title of a page which is to be shown at the top of a page commonly used as the logo. The next h1 will be the subject title i.e. Welcome to... so semantically this would require more the 1 H1. For accessibility which styles switched off it clearly breaks up the pages, and has a similar effect for screen readers. Hope this makes it a little clearer. _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Jason Grant Sent: 16 October 2009 15:25 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? EBS Admin - Matt doesn't say to use multiple H1s on the page, but says that you will not get penalised for using them (within reason) on a given page. Every site I ever worked on I had used only one H1 on and it still enjoys being on first page of Google. My formula, hence, does not only say Google or only Accessibility, but all of the points I mentioned. You say it is semantic to use more than one H1, but don't actually justify your reasoning behind it. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 3:02 PM, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net wrote: Jason, Thats clearly not the case, if you read the WIA guidlines then is advocates the use of multiple H1's, from an semantic point of view they make sense and in terms of SEO the make sense because every site we've built uses mutiple H1's and they enjoy page 1 results on Google. The video that Tim has just sent in is by Google and they say to use multiple H1's! _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Jason Grant Sent: 16 October 2009 14:48 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: More than one H1? (was [WSG] Out of Office AutoReply: WSG Digest) Tim To keep it really simple: Spec + SEO + Good IA + Semantics + Accessibility + Common sense == One H1 per page Hope this makes sense? Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.com wrote: OK, straight from Google Webmaster Central: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel feature=channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel (video from March 2009) Tim On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Jason Grant ja...@flexewebs.com wrote: Tim, Well done for reading the spec - it's always a must. However, Google came after the HTML4.01 spec and what Google wants we give it - so the 'only one H1 per page' guideline comes from SEO best practices as well as general semantics and IA best practices. So the spec does not tell you to use one H1 per page, but the spec is not the be all and end all of guidelines. Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 4:23 AM, Marilyn Langfeld m...@langfeldesigns.com wrote: ... H1 is reserved for the title of the page. In a document, at least, there's only one title, while there may be many first level headings. ... So H1 is, IMHO, not the first level header, but the T1, or main title of the page. A logo is never, IMHO again, the title of the page. Let's look at what the specification says; A heading element briefly describes the topic of the section it introduces. Heading information may be used by user agents, for example, to construct a table of contents for a document automatically. There are six levels of headings in HTML with http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#edef-H1 H1 as the most important and http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#edef-H6 H6 as the least. Visual browsers usually render more important headings in larger fonts than less important ones. http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#h-7.5.5 http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#h-7.5.5 Nowhere does it say that H1s are for page titles or that there can be only 1 per page. In fact, the example shows two being used. ~ Tim *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** -- Jason Grant BSc, MSc CEO, Flexewebs Ltd. www.flexewebs.com ja...@flexewebs.com +44 (0)7748 591 770 Company no.: 5587469 www.flexewebs.com/semantix www.twitter.com/flexewebs www.linkedin.com/in/flexewebs *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join
Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
Yes but my argument against putting the H1 around the logo is that the logo is present on all pages and typically each site will be optimised for it's brand name (e.g. Flexewebs) so no value in highlighting that. I would potentially agree with you if you were arguing for putting H1 around other content within the page, but certainly not the logo. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device -Original Message- From: EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:36:00 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Okay so the justify, the first H1 is the title of a page which is to be shown at the top of a page commonly used as the logo. The next h1 will be the subject title i.e. Welcome to... so semantically this would require more the 1 H1. For accessibility which styles switched off it clearly breaks up the pages, and has a similar effect for screen readers. Hope this makes it a little clearer. _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Jason Grant Sent: 16 October 2009 15:25 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? EBS Admin - Matt doesn't say to use multiple H1s on the page, but says that you will not get penalised for using them (within reason) on a given page. Every site I ever worked on I had used only one H1 on and it still enjoys being on first page of Google. My formula, hence, does not only say Google or only Accessibility, but all of the points I mentioned. You say it is semantic to use more than one H1, but don't actually justify your reasoning behind it. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 3:02 PM, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net wrote: Jason, Thats clearly not the case, if you read the WIA guidlines then is advocates the use of multiple H1's, from an semantic point of view they make sense and in terms of SEO the make sense because every site we've built uses mutiple H1's and they enjoy page 1 results on Google. The video that Tim has just sent in is by Google and they say to use multiple H1's! _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Jason Grant Sent: 16 October 2009 14:48 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: More than one H1? (was [WSG] Out of Office AutoReply: WSG Digest) Tim To keep it really simple: Spec + SEO + Good IA + Semantics + Accessibility + Common sense == One H1 per page Hope this makes sense? Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.com wrote: OK, straight from Google Webmaster Central: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel feature=channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel (video from March 2009) Tim On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Jason Grant ja...@flexewebs.com wrote: Tim, Well done for reading the spec - it's always a must. However, Google came after the HTML4.01 spec and what Google wants we give it - so the 'only one H1 per page' guideline comes from SEO best practices as well as general semantics and IA best practices. So the spec does not tell you to use one H1 per page, but the spec is not the be all and end all of guidelines. Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 4:23 AM, Marilyn Langfeld m...@langfeldesigns.com wrote: ... H1 is reserved for the title of the page. In a document, at least, there's only one title, while there may be many first level headings. ... So H1 is, IMHO, not the first level header, but the T1, or main title of the page. A logo is never, IMHO again, the title of the page. Let's look at what the specification says; A heading element briefly describes the topic of the section it introduces. Heading information may be used by user agents, for example, to construct a table of contents for a document automatically. There are six levels of headings in HTML with http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#edef-H1 H1 as the most important and http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#edef-H6 H6 as the least. Visual browsers usually render more important headings in larger fonts than less important ones. http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#h-7.5.5 http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#h-7.5.5 Nowhere does it say that H1s are for page titles or that there can be only 1 per page. In fact, the example shows two being used. ~ Tim *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** -- Jason Grant BSc, MSc CEO, Flexewebs Ltd. www.flexewebs.com ja...@flexewebs.com +44 (0)7748 591 770 Company no.: 5587469
RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
The way to wrap the H1 for the logo is not to wrap it around an image, the fist H1 should be text with keywords for the page that is being represented in a grammatical format, with clever use of CSS these can be styled up to look like graphic logos but degrade for accessibility and provide a tool to get the H1 as the first element in a page whilst complementing the semantics, accessibility and seo requirements. _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of ja...@flexewebs.com Sent: 16 October 2009 15:45 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Yes but my argument against putting the H1 around the logo is that the logo is present on all pages and typically each site will be optimised for it's brand name (e.g. Flexewebs) so no value in highlighting that. I would potentially agree with you if you were arguing for putting H1 around other content within the page, but certainly not the logo. Sent from my BlackBerryR wireless device _ From: EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:36:00 +0100 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Okay so the justify, the first H1 is the title of a page which is to be shown at the top of a page commonly used as the logo. The next h1 will be the subject title i.e. Welcome to... so semantically this would require more the 1 H1. For accessibility which styles switched off it clearly breaks up the pages, and has a similar effect for screen readers. Hope this makes it a little clearer. _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Jason Grant Sent: 16 October 2009 15:25 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? EBS Admin - Matt doesn't say to use multiple H1s on the page, but says that you will not get penalised for using them (within reason) on a given page. Every site I ever worked on I had used only one H1 on and it still enjoys being on first page of Google. My formula, hence, does not only say Google or only Accessibility, but all of the points I mentioned. You say it is semantic to use more than one H1, but don't actually justify your reasoning behind it. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 3:02 PM, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net wrote: Jason, Thats clearly not the case, if you read the WIA guidlines then is advocates the use of multiple H1's, from an semantic point of view they make sense and in terms of SEO the make sense because every site we've built uses mutiple H1's and they enjoy page 1 results on Google. The video that Tim has just sent in is by Google and they say to use multiple H1's! _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Jason Grant Sent: 16 October 2009 14:48 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: More than one H1? (was [WSG] Out of Office AutoReply: WSG Digest) Tim To keep it really simple: Spec + SEO + Good IA + Semantics + Accessibility + Common sense == One H1 per page Hope this makes sense? Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.com wrote: OK, straight from Google Webmaster Central: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel feature=channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel (video from March 2009) Tim On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Jason Grant ja...@flexewebs.com wrote: Tim, Well done for reading the spec - it's always a must. However, Google came after the HTML4.01 spec and what Google wants we give it - so the 'only one H1 per page' guideline comes from SEO best practices as well as general semantics and IA best practices. So the spec does not tell you to use one H1 per page, but the spec is not the be all and end all of guidelines. Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 4:23 AM, Marilyn Langfeld m...@langfeldesigns.com wrote: ... H1 is reserved for the title of the page. In a document, at least, there's only one title, while there may be many first level headings. ... So H1 is, IMHO, not the first level header, but the T1, or main title of the page. A logo is never, IMHO again, the title of the page. Let's look at what the specification says; A heading element briefly describes the topic of the section it introduces. Heading information may be used by user agents, for example, to construct a table of contents for a document automatically. There are six levels of headings in HTML with http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#edef-H1 H1 as the most important and http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#edef-H6 H6 as the least. Visual browsers usually render more important headings in larger fonts than less important ones. http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#h-7.5.5 http://www.w3
Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
That's only relevant if your site has a keyword in the logo (e.g. Free Online Games), where each of the words is a form of a keyword, while if your site is called MiniClip, there is not much point in wrapping H1 around it. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 3:52 PM, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net wrote: The way to wrap the H1 for the logo is not to wrap it around an image, the fist H1 should be text with keywords for the page that is being represented in a grammatical format, with clever use of CSS these can be styled up to look like graphic logos but degrade for accessibility and provide a tool to get the H1 as the first element in a page whilst complementing the semantics, accessibility and seo requirements. -- *From:* li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] *On Behalf Of *ja...@flexewebs.com *Sent:* 16 October 2009 15:45 *To:* wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject:* Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Yes but my argument against putting the H1 around the logo is that the logo is present on all pages and typically each site will be optimised for it's brand name (e.g. Flexewebs) so no value in highlighting that. I would potentially agree with you if you were arguing for putting H1 around other content within the page, but certainly not the logo. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device -- *From: *EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net *Date: *Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:36:00 +0100 *To: *wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject: *RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Okay so the justify, the first H1 is the title of a page which is to be shown at the top of a page commonly used as the logo. The next h1 will be the subject title i.e. Welcome to... so semantically this would require more the 1 H1. For accessibility which styles switched off it clearly breaks up the pages, and has a similar effect for screen readers. Hope this makes it a little clearer. -- *From:* li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] *On Behalf Of *Jason Grant *Sent:* 16 October 2009 15:25 *To:* wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject:* Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? EBS Admin - Matt doesn't say to use multiple H1s on the page, but says that you will not get penalised for using them (within reason) on a given page. Every site I ever worked on I had used only one H1 on and it still enjoys being on first page of Google. My formula, hence, does not only say Google or only Accessibility, but all of the points I mentioned. You say it is semantic to use more than one H1, but don't actually justify your reasoning behind it. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 3:02 PM, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net wrote: Jason, Thats clearly not the case, if you read the WIA guidlines then is advocates the use of multiple H1's, from an semantic point of view they make sense and in terms of SEO the make sense because every site we've built uses mutiple H1's and they enjoy page 1 results on Google. The video that Tim has just sent in is by Google and they say to use multiple H1's! -- *From:* li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] *On Behalf Of *Jason Grant *Sent:* 16 October 2009 14:48 *To:* wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject:* Re: More than one H1? (was [WSG] Out of Office AutoReply: WSG Digest) Tim To keep it really simple: Spec + SEO + Good IA + Semantics + Accessibility + Common sense == One H1 per page Hope this makes sense? Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.com wrote: OK, straight from Google Webmaster Central: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel(video from March 2009) Tim On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Jason Grant ja...@flexewebs.comwrote: Tim, Well done for reading the spec - it's always a must. However, Google came after the HTML4.01 spec and what Google wants we give it - so the 'only one H1 per page' guideline comes from SEO best practices as well as general semantics and IA best practices. So the spec does not tell you to use one H1 per page, but the spec is not the be all and end all of guidelines. Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 4:23 AM, Marilyn Langfeld m...@langfeldesigns.com wrote: ... H1 is reserved for the title of the page. In a document, at least, there's only one title, while there may be many first level headings. ... So H1 is, IMHO, not the first level header, but the T1, or main title of the page. A logo is never, IMHO again, the title of the page. Let's look at what the specification says; A heading element briefly describes the topic of the section it introduces. Heading information may be used by user agents
RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
No but you can wrap MiniClip - Providers of Miniature Clips for Business. _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Jason Grant Sent: 16 October 2009 16:00 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? That's only relevant if your site has a keyword in the logo (e.g. Free Online Games), where each of the words is a form of a keyword, while if your site is called MiniClip, there is not much point in wrapping H1 around it. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 3:52 PM, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net wrote: The way to wrap the H1 for the logo is not to wrap it around an image, the fist H1 should be text with keywords for the page that is being represented in a grammatical format, with clever use of CSS these can be styled up to look like graphic logos but degrade for accessibility and provide a tool to get the H1 as the first element in a page whilst complementing the semantics, accessibility and seo requirements. _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of ja...@flexewebs.com Sent: 16 October 2009 15:45 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Yes but my argument against putting the H1 around the logo is that the logo is present on all pages and typically each site will be optimised for it's brand name (e.g. Flexewebs) so no value in highlighting that. I would potentially agree with you if you were arguing for putting H1 around other content within the page, but certainly not the logo. Sent from my BlackBerryR wireless device _ From: EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:36:00 +0100 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Okay so the justify, the first H1 is the title of a page which is to be shown at the top of a page commonly used as the logo. The next h1 will be the subject title i.e. Welcome to... so semantically this would require more the 1 H1. For accessibility which styles switched off it clearly breaks up the pages, and has a similar effect for screen readers. Hope this makes it a little clearer. _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Jason Grant Sent: 16 October 2009 15:25 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? EBS Admin - Matt doesn't say to use multiple H1s on the page, but says that you will not get penalised for using them (within reason) on a given page. Every site I ever worked on I had used only one H1 on and it still enjoys being on first page of Google. My formula, hence, does not only say Google or only Accessibility, but all of the points I mentioned. You say it is semantic to use more than one H1, but don't actually justify your reasoning behind it. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 3:02 PM, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net wrote: Jason, Thats clearly not the case, if you read the WIA guidlines then is advocates the use of multiple H1's, from an semantic point of view they make sense and in terms of SEO the make sense because every site we've built uses mutiple H1's and they enjoy page 1 results on Google. The video that Tim has just sent in is by Google and they say to use multiple H1's! _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Jason Grant Sent: 16 October 2009 14:48 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: More than one H1? (was [WSG] Out of Office AutoReply: WSG Digest) Tim To keep it really simple: Spec + SEO + Good IA + Semantics + Accessibility + Common sense == One H1 per page Hope this makes sense? Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.com wrote: OK, straight from Google Webmaster Central: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel feature=channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel (video from March 2009) Tim On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Jason Grant ja...@flexewebs.com wrote: Tim, Well done for reading the spec - it's always a must. However, Google came after the HTML4.01 spec and what Google wants we give it - so the 'only one H1 per page' guideline comes from SEO best practices as well as general semantics and IA best practices. So the spec does not tell you to use one H1 per page, but the spec is not the be all and end all of guidelines. Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 4:23 AM, Marilyn Langfeld m...@langfeldesigns.com wrote: ... H1 is reserved for the title of the page. In a document, at least, there's only one title, while there may be many first level headings. ... So H1 is, IMHO, not the first level header, but the T1, or main title of the page. A logo is never, IMHO again, the title of the page. Let's look at what
Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
Seems to me that Providers of Miniature Clips for Business is more of a tag line and not really appropriate to put in an h1 heading. -- Brett P. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 11:10, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.netwrote: No but you can wrap MiniClip - Providers of Miniature Clips for Business. -- *From:* li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] *On Behalf Of *Jason Grant *Sent:* 16 October 2009 16:00 *To:* wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject:* Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? That's only relevant if your site has a keyword in the logo (e.g. Free Online Games), where each of the words is a form of a keyword, while if your site is called MiniClip, there is not much point in wrapping H1 around it. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 3:52 PM, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net wrote: The way to wrap the H1 for the logo is not to wrap it around an image, the fist H1 should be text with keywords for the page that is being represented in a grammatical format, with clever use of CSS these can be styled up to look like graphic logos but degrade for accessibility and provide a tool to get the H1 as the first element in a page whilst complementing the semantics, accessibility and seo requirements. -- *From:* li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] *On Behalf Of *ja...@flexewebs.com *Sent:* 16 October 2009 15:45 *To:* wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject:* Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Yes but my argument against putting the H1 around the logo is that the logo is present on all pages and typically each site will be optimised for it's brand name (e.g. Flexewebs) so no value in highlighting that. I would potentially agree with you if you were arguing for putting H1 around other content within the page, but certainly not the logo. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device -- *From: *EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net *Date: *Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:36:00 +0100 *To: *wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject: *RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Okay so the justify, the first H1 is the title of a page which is to be shown at the top of a page commonly used as the logo. The next h1 will be the subject title i.e. Welcome to... so semantically this would require more the 1 H1. For accessibility which styles switched off it clearly breaks up the pages, and has a similar effect for screen readers. Hope this makes it a little clearer. -- *From:* li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] *On Behalf Of *Jason Grant *Sent:* 16 October 2009 15:25 *To:* wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject:* Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? EBS Admin - Matt doesn't say to use multiple H1s on the page, but says that you will not get penalised for using them (within reason) on a given page. Every site I ever worked on I had used only one H1 on and it still enjoys being on first page of Google. My formula, hence, does not only say Google or only Accessibility, but all of the points I mentioned. You say it is semantic to use more than one H1, but don't actually justify your reasoning behind it. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 3:02 PM, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net wrote: Jason, Thats clearly not the case, if you read the WIA guidlines then is advocates the use of multiple H1's, from an semantic point of view they make sense and in terms of SEO the make sense because every site we've built uses mutiple H1's and they enjoy page 1 results on Google. The video that Tim has just sent in is by Google and they say to use multiple H1's! -- *From:* li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] *On Behalf Of *Jason Grant *Sent:* 16 October 2009 14:48 *To:* wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject:* Re: More than one H1? (was [WSG] Out of Office AutoReply: WSG Digest) Tim To keep it really simple: Spec + SEO + Good IA + Semantics + Accessibility + Common sense == One H1 per page Hope this makes sense? Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.comwrote: OK, straight from Google Webmaster Central: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VMfeature=channel(video from March 2009) Tim On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Jason Grant ja...@flexewebs.comwrote: Tim, Well done for reading the spec - it's always a must. However, Google came after the HTML4.01 spec and what Google wants we give it - so the 'only one H1 per page' guideline comes from SEO best practices as well as general semantics and IA best practices. So the spec does not tell you to use one H1 per page, but the spec is not the be all and end all of guidelines. Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri
RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
To have the logo as a H1 on every page will most likely trigger spam filters in the search engines as you are duplicating the heading throughout the website, they should always be unique. Anyone advising to do this to boost your page's keyword relevancy simply doesn't know what they are talking about. I cant think of a single reason why you would wrap a H1 around a logo as there is no advantage to you, search engines or your visitors. Maybe if you had a business directory where each listing had its own logo and alt text of the company name then it could work there but not if there was already an H1 on the page. The only case that you could possibly use two H1s on a page is if you had a page containing two entirely different topics. But then again wouldn't you just put this content on two separate pages? If your sites theme is to write about lots of different content e.g. a general blog, then it should have a main H1 and each topic be summarised using H2's and then include a link to their own individual pages. Why is the topic starter looking for reasons for why they shouldn't do it, when they should be asking themselves what is their reason for using the H1 this way in the first place? Did they see it on some 'SEO's website and think 'they must know what they are doing so I'll copy them'? LOL Maybe they should listen to the SEO expert they've already spoken to... I would have thought it's pretty obvious that you shouldn't do it ;) Darren Lovelock Munky Online Web Design http://www.munkyonline.co.uk/ http://www.munkyonline.co.uk T: +44 (0)20-8816-8893 _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of EBS Admin Sent: 16 October 2009 15:52 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? The way to wrap the H1 for the logo is not to wrap it around an image, the fist H1 should be text with keywords for the page that is being represented in a grammatical format, with clever use of CSS these can be styled up to look like graphic logos but degrade for accessibility and provide a tool to get the H1 as the first element in a page whilst complementing the semantics, accessibility and seo requirements. _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of ja...@flexewebs.com Sent: 16 October 2009 15:45 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Yes but my argument against putting the H1 around the logo is that the logo is present on all pages and typically each site will be optimised for it's brand name (e.g. Flexewebs) so no value in highlighting that. I would potentially agree with you if you were arguing for putting H1 around other content within the page, but certainly not the logo. Sent from my BlackBerryR wireless device _ From: EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:36:00 +0100 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Okay so the justify, the first H1 is the title of a page which is to be shown at the top of a page commonly used as the logo. The next h1 will be the subject title i.e. Welcome to... so semantically this would require more the 1 H1. For accessibility which styles switched off it clearly breaks up the pages, and has a similar effect for screen readers. Hope this makes it a little clearer. _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Jason Grant Sent: 16 October 2009 15:25 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? EBS Admin - Matt doesn't say to use multiple H1s on the page, but says that you will not get penalised for using them (within reason) on a given page. Every site I ever worked on I had used only one H1 on and it still enjoys being on first page of Google. My formula, hence, does not only say Google or only Accessibility, but all of the points I mentioned. You say it is semantic to use more than one H1, but don't actually justify your reasoning behind it. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 3:02 PM, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net wrote: Jason, Thats clearly not the case, if you read the WIA guidlines then is advocates the use of multiple H1's, from an semantic point of view they make sense and in terms of SEO the make sense because every site we've built uses mutiple H1's and they enjoy page 1 results on Google. The video that Tim has just sent in is by Google and they say to use multiple H1's! _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Jason Grant Sent: 16 October 2009 14:48 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: More than one H1? (was [WSG] Out of Office AutoReply: WSG Digest) Tim To keep it really simple: Spec + SEO + Good IA + Semantics + Accessibility + Common sense == One H1 per page Hope this makes sense? Thanks, Jason On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Tim White tjameswh...@gmail.com
Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
Hello everyone, There are many cases that you should repeat h1 or others headers. I do many homepages or homepages of areas, and i don't know were i should or not use the h1. I don't use in page title because is not relevant. The correct use should be on the titles of modules that i use, such as last news or last updates or any title of some list of items. And they have the some importance. This problem will be solved, I hope, with the use of section and header in HTML5. Gaspar On 16/10/2009, Darren Lovelock i...@munkyonline.co.uk wrote: To have the logo as a H1 on every page will most likely trigger spam filters in the search engines as you are duplicating the heading throughout the website, they should always be unique. Anyone advising to do this to boost your page's keyword relevancy simply doesn't know what they are talking about. I cant think of a single reason why you would wrap a H1 around a logo as there is no advantage to you, search engines or your visitors. Maybe if you had a business directory where each listing had its own logo and alt text of the company name then it could work there but not if there was already an H1 on the page. The only case that you could possibly use two H1s on a page is if you had a page containing two entirely different topics. But then again wouldn't you just put this content on two separate pages? If your sites theme is to write about lots of different content e.g. a general blog, then it should have a main H1 and each topic be summarised using H2's and then include a link to their own individual pages. Why is the topic starter looking for reasons for why they shouldn't do it, when they should be asking themselves what is their reason for using the H1 this way in the first place? Did they see it on some 'SEO's website and think 'they must know what they are doing so I'll copy them'? LOL Maybe they should listen to the SEO expert they've already spoken to... I would have thought it's pretty obvious that you shouldn't do it ;) Darren Lovelock Munky Online Web Design http://www.munkyonline.co.uk T: +44 (0)20-8816-8893 From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of EBS Admin Sent: 16 October 2009 15:52 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? The way to wrap the H1 for the logo is not to wrap it around an image, the fist H1 should be text with keywords for the page that is being represented in a grammatical format, with clever use of CSS these can be styled up to look like graphic logos but degrade for accessibility and provide a tool to get the H1 as the first element in a page whilst complementing the semantics, accessibility and seo requirements. From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of ja...@flexewebs.com Sent: 16 October 2009 15:45 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Yes but my argument against putting the H1 around the logo is that the logo is present on all pages and typically each site will be optimised for it's brand name (e.g. Flexewebs) so no value in highlighting that. I would potentially agree with you if you were arguing for putting H1 around other content within the page, but certainly not the logo. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device From: EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:36:00 +0100 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Okay so the justify, the first H1 is the title of a page which is to be shown at the top of a page commonly used as the logo. The next h1 will be the subject title i.e. Welcome to... so semantically this would require more the 1 H1. For accessibility which styles switched off it clearly breaks up the pages, and has a similar effect for screen readers. Hope this makes it a little clearer. From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Jason Grant Sent: 16 October 2009 15:25 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? EBS Admin - Matt doesn't say to use multiple H1s on the page, but says that you will not get penalised for using them (within reason) on a given page. Every site I ever worked on I had used only one H1 on and it still enjoys being on first page of Google. My formula, hence, does not only say Google or only Accessibility, but all of the points I mentioned. You say it is semantic to use more than one H1, but don't actually justify your reasoning behind it. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 3:02 PM, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net wrote: Jason, Thats clearly not the case, if you read the WIA guidlines then is advocates the use of multiple H1's, from an semantic point of view they make
Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
Gaspar wrote: This problem will be solved, I hope, with the use of section and header in HTML5. Indeed, in HTML5 the meaning of h1-6 is 'headings for the sections with which they are associated' - multiple h1 elements in a page is not a problem: http://dev.w3.org/html5/markup/h1.html A discussion of the impact of this on accessibility in the comments to this blog post: http://www.iheni.com/html-5-to-the-h1-debate-rescue/ Rob *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
Hi Darren, Maybe if you read what I wrote properly you would see that the H1 surrounding the logo has different key words in it depending on the page. I use text h1Site name - keywords/h1 as my logo and style it with CSS and therefore each one is unique, semantic and great for SEO _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Darren Lovelock Sent: 16 October 2009 16:33 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? To have the logo as a H1 on every page will most likely trigger spam filters in the search engines as you are duplicating the heading throughout the website, they should always be unique. Anyone advising to do this to boost your page's keyword relevancy simply doesn't know what they are talking about. I cant think of a single reason why you would wrap a H1 around a logo as there is no advantage to you, search engines or your visitors. Maybe if you had a business directory where each listing had its own logo and alt text of the company name then it could work there but not if there was already an H1 on the page. The only case that you could possibly use two H1s on a page is if you had a page containing two entirely different topics. But then again wouldn't you just put this content on two separate pages? If your sites theme is to write about lots of different content e.g. a general blog, then it should have a main H1 and each topic be summarised using H2's and then include a link to their own individual pages. Why is the topic starter looking for reasons for why they shouldn't do it, when they should be asking themselves what is their reason for using the H1 this way in the first place? Did they see it on some 'SEO's website and think 'they must know what they are doing so I'll copy them'? LOL Maybe they should listen to the SEO expert they've already spoken to... I would have thought it's pretty obvious that you shouldn't do it ;) Darren Lovelock Munky Online Web Design http://www.munkyonline.co.uk/ http://www.munkyonline.co.uk T: +44 (0)20-8816-8893 _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of EBS Admin Sent: 16 October 2009 15:52 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? The way to wrap the H1 for the logo is not to wrap it around an image, the fist H1 should be text with keywords for the page that is being represented in a grammatical format, with clever use of CSS these can be styled up to look like graphic logos but degrade for accessibility and provide a tool to get the H1 as the first element in a page whilst complementing the semantics, accessibility and seo requirements. _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of ja...@flexewebs.com Sent: 16 October 2009 15:45 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Yes but my argument against putting the H1 around the logo is that the logo is present on all pages and typically each site will be optimised for it's brand name (e.g. Flexewebs) so no value in highlighting that. I would potentially agree with you if you were arguing for putting H1 around other content within the page, but certainly not the logo. Sent from my BlackBerryR wireless device _ From: EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:36:00 +0100 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Okay so the justify, the first H1 is the title of a page which is to be shown at the top of a page commonly used as the logo. The next h1 will be the subject title i.e. Welcome to... so semantically this would require more the 1 H1. For accessibility which styles switched off it clearly breaks up the pages, and has a similar effect for screen readers. Hope this makes it a little clearer. _ From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Jason Grant Sent: 16 October 2009 15:25 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? EBS Admin - Matt doesn't say to use multiple H1s on the page, but says that you will not get penalised for using them (within reason) on a given page. Every site I ever worked on I had used only one H1 on and it still enjoys being on first page of Google. My formula, hence, does not only say Google or only Accessibility, but all of the points I mentioned. You say it is semantic to use more than one H1, but don't actually justify your reasoning behind it. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 3:02 PM, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net wrote: Jason, Thats clearly not the case, if you read the WIA guidlines then is advocates the use of multiple H1's, from an semantic point of view they make sense and in terms of SEO the make sense because every site we've built uses mutiple H1's and they enjoy page 1 results on Google
Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1?
EBS Admin, from what I read it looked like it was a motto, not some keywords. -- Brett P. On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 12:29, EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.netwrote: Hi Darren, Maybe if you read what I wrote properly you would see that the H1 surrounding the logo has different key words in it depending on the page. I use text h1Site name – keywords/h1 as my logo and style it with CSS and therefore each one is unique, semantic and great for SEO -- *From:* li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] *On Behalf Of *Darren Lovelock *Sent:* 16 October 2009 16:33 *To:* wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject:* RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? To have the logo as a H1 on every page will most likely trigger spam filters in the search engines as you are duplicating the heading throughout the website, they should always be unique. Anyone advising to do this to boost your page's keyword relevancy simply doesn't know what they are talking about. I cant think of a single reason why you would wrap a H1 around a logo as there is no advantage to you, search engines or your visitors. Maybe if you had a business directory where each listing had its own logo and alt text of the company name then it could work there but not if there was already an H1 on the page. The only case that you could possibly use two H1s on a page is if you had a page containing two entirely different topics. But then again wouldn't you just put this content on two separate pages? If your sites theme is to write about lots of different content e.g. a general blog, then it should have a main H1 and each topic be summarised using H2's and then include a link to their own individual pages. Why is the topic starter looking for reasons for why they shouldn't do it, when they should be asking themselves what is their reason for using the H1 this way in the first place? Did they see it on some 'SEO's website and think 'they must know what they are doing so I'll copy them'? LOL Maybe they should listen to the SEO expert they've already spoken to... I would have thought it's pretty obvious that you shouldn't do it ;) Darren Lovelock Munky Online Web Design http://www.munkyonline.co.uk T: +44 (0)20-8816-8893 -- *From:* li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] *On Behalf Of *EBS Admin *Sent:* 16 October 2009 15:52 *To:* wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject:* RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? The way to wrap the H1 for the logo is not to wrap it around an image, the fist H1 should be text with keywords for the page that is being represented in a grammatical format, with clever use of CSS these can be styled up to look like graphic logos but degrade for accessibility and provide a tool to get the H1 as the first element in a page whilst complementing the semantics, accessibility and seo requirements. -- *From:* li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] *On Behalf Of *ja...@flexewebs.com *Sent:* 16 October 2009 15:45 *To:* wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject:* Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Yes but my argument against putting the H1 around the logo is that the logo is present on all pages and typically each site will be optimised for it's brand name (e.g. Flexewebs) so no value in highlighting that. I would potentially agree with you if you were arguing for putting H1 around other content within the page, but certainly not the logo. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device -- *From: *EBS Admin ad...@essentialebizsolutions.net *Date: *Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:36:00 +0100 *To: *wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject: *RE: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? Okay so the justify, the first H1 is the title of a page which is to be shown at the top of a page commonly used as the logo. The next h1 will be the subject title i.e. Welcome to... so semantically this would require more the 1 H1. For accessibility which styles switched off it clearly breaks up the pages, and has a similar effect for screen readers. Hope this makes it a little clearer. -- *From:* li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] *On Behalf Of *Jason Grant *Sent:* 16 October 2009 15:25 *To:* wsg@webstandardsgroup.org *Subject:* Re: [WSG] RE: More than one H1? EBS Admin - Matt doesn't say to use multiple H1s on the page, but says that you will not get penalised for using them (within reason) on a given page. Every site I ever worked on I had used only one H1 on and it still enjoys being on first page of Google. My formula, hence, does not only say Google or only Accessibility, but all of the points I mentioned. You say it is semantic to use more than one H1, but don't actually justify your reasoning behind it. On Fri, Oct 16
Re: [WSG] Re: More than one H1?
2009/10/16 Jason Grant ja...@flexewebs.com: Ollie you are threading a dangerous ground there. Explained here why you are wrong: http://www.flexewebs.com/semantix/semantic-uses-of-h1-h2-h6-html-tags/ Good link for this thread Jason. Although I don’t understand why the company name would be inappropriate semantically to use as the h1 on the home page. The home page represents the company. If I Google for a company with it’s name as a keyword I would expect to find their home page. Using it on every page of the site is a different matter. For this to work the 'logo' would be text which would be styled with CSS to look like the logo in a browser. As an alternative I expect the alt text of an image would likely suffice (not so sure on this one). To put on my hat with horns to present a possible issue with my own suggestion; I would point out that using a different structure between pages of a site can be confusing for a screenreader user; But then, home pages often are a different structure to topic-specific sub pages anyway so I don’t expect anyone would get upset about it. I’ve been doing this for a few years now so if I’m wrong I’m keen to be corrected! … The defence for using two h1 elements in a page makes some sense to me from the same perspective that it makes sense to put the company name in every page title alongside the subject of the page eg: [title]SEO and semantics - WSG blog[/title]. You have to draw the line somewhere though, as too much emphasis is no emphasis at all. Interesting discussion - thanks to those at WDS09 who introduced me to this group! -- Ollie Boermans @ollicle *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
