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 responses....I didn't expect this topic to be so clouded. For me and this particular site I'm working on, the problem still remains....while 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 consensus....but 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 impressive....the 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 <mailto:ja...@flexewebs.com> <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 ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* 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 *******************************************************************
