A survey of almost 2,000 SEOs has shown that there is clear disagreement about the knowledge of so-called H1 headings. More than 50% of SEOs are mistaken or have not heard about Google’s announcement about the number of H1 titles.
Because there are now clear guidelines regarding this and yet a survey has led to a veritable firestorm of discussion. How many H1 and H2 are usual? Rather one H1 heading and several H2s are a well-known mistake and an outdated practice that many SEOs are nevertheless sure of.
In the poll on Twitter by Cyrus Shepard (@CyrusShepard), a definite discrepancy emerges. Almost 60% stated that Google only recommends an H1 headline for the website.
If it’s not just one, how many are there? In this post, we will clear up this discrepancy by talking about the following topics:
– The official Google recommendation for H1 headings
– Why SEOs can’t agree on the correct use of headings
– Headline tag SEO remains a controversial topic online
– How Google needed clues for website comprehension back then
– There is no magical ranking power behind the H1 tag
– So what is the right way to use headings?
– How headlines are used to rank for keywords
Official Google recommendation for H1 headings
Does Google recommend using a single H1 headline? As you have already seen, the answer is no.
John Mueller from Google said it officially in an Office Hour Hangout. Publishers are free to decide how many H1 headings they want to use.
John Mueller said the following about this topic in the Office Hour Hangout:
“You can use H1 tags as often as you want on a page. There is no limit, neither upwards nor downwards.
Your page will rank perfectly even without H1 tags or with five H1 tags.”
Google even released a video on this specific topic to dispel the idea that only an H1 is recommended.
In the video, John Mueller says:
“Our systems have no problem when it comes to multiple H1 headings on a page. This is a fairly common pattern on the web.”
SEOs can’t agree on the correct use of headings
Anecdotal evidence from online discussions on platforms such as Facebook, where a variety of SEO groups can be found, also shows that there is a great deal of disagreement about the correct use of headlines. Some in the SEO industry cling to ideas from the very early 2000s and insist that there can only be one H1 tag per website and believe John Mueller’s statements are wrong. Others, on the other hand, stand by John Mueller’s statements and plead for their accuracy.
Although Google’s statements have already been made in the form of many clarifications that speak in favor of using multiple H1 headings, the two camps of SEOs remain. Regardless of how often Google will comment, it is to be expected that the advocates of the single H1 heading will continue to exist. Truly an extremely polarizing topic. Which brings us to the next point.
Headline tag SEO is a controversial topic on the internet
Many SEOs stick to their guns and say that the H1 tag is more important than H2, H3 etc. Even if they admit that John Mueller’s statement is largely correct – or that it was made in the least – they will still insist that an H1 tag is more important than an H2 heading.
This may have been a real fact in the early 2000s, but it is simply no longer true today. Why?
Google used to use clues to understand websites
Google in its early years used headings as a clue to understand what a website was about. The crawler, or Google bot, is responsible for reading the HTML structure of a website in order to understand it. Alt tags for images, for example, are used to make the image visible to the crawler. The crawler is still busy today and will continue to read the HTML structures of the website.
In the past, however, Google considered the content at the top of the website to be more important because it gave a further indication of what a website was about, as many authors of their website provided precise information about it.
Words written in bold, italics and larger font (using the old HTML 4 font tag) were also considered indicators of a website’s content in the early 2000s.
Some of these ranking factors were part of the original Google PageRanks research paper, which was first published in 1998. This was also followed by further research papers, which Google published in combination with detailed explanations.
The essential point is that headings and other such elements were used as clues to merely indicate the content of a website. Google then began to stop searching for references to these content labels around 2012.
That’s the date when Google announced a new direction to understand the thing as such by using a Knowledge Graph.
The Knowledge Graph gave Google a deeper understanding of what things actually are, allowing Google to move away from searching for clues in strings of data.
Google announced this in an article entitled Introducing the Knowledge Graph: Things, Not Strings.
Google’s announcement states:
“This is a crucial first step towards the next generation of search, tapping into the collective intelligence of the web and understanding the world a little more like humans.”
Following the announcement of the Google Hummingbird update in September 2013, Google began a transition to a more natural language style to understand content and search queries. So you no longer have to rely on clues to understand things like content on websites, but can focus on knowledge by comparing objects in order to understand things.
That was several years ago, and natural language processing is now so advanced that Google no longer relies or needs to rely on clues other than these for the search engine to understand what a website is about.
In 2021, Google will be able to understand what certain topics on the respective websites are about by associating them with the search query.
It is far more demanding than assigning search queries to keywords on a website.
And that’s exactly why John Mueller from Google reached out to the SEO community to say that it no longer matters how many H1 headings are used. The only purpose a headline has now is to communicate what a section of content is about. That is all.
The old 2001 method of using keywords to give Google a hint is a thing of the past. Google no longer uses exact match keywords in search results because natural language and AI technologies allow Google to understand what a page is about, especially if it is well structured and the headline elements are used correctly.
No magical ranking power through an H1 tag
John Mueller’s statement explicitly states that a page will rank well even without an H1 or with five H1s. This means that no additional importance is attached to an H1.
Mueller also said in another Office Hangout, a page will continue to rank well if you use an H2 tag or an H1 tag and that they can be used interchangeably.
His answer to the following question was:
“Will a page without an H1 title still rank for keywords that are in the H2 title?”
“Of course.
Will it still rank then? I don’t know if it will still be like that, but it could be. It definitely can.”
Mueller went on to say that headings on a page (not just H1, but headings) help tell Google what that section of content is about.
Mueller explained:
“So headings on a page help us to better understand the content of the page.
Headlines on the page are not the only ranking factor we have.
We also consider the content on its own.
But sometimes a clear headline on a page gives us a little more information about what that section is about.”
Headline tags are therefore still a strong signal of what a content section is about.
Trick question?
In a way, the original survey was based on a trick question. Google’s SEO Starter Guide says nothing about H1 tags. So one answer to the question of whether Google recommends a headline tag is: No, Google does not.
But John Mueller has said a lot about headline elements and this should not be ignored.
How are headings used correctly?
What is the right way to use headings?
I don’t think it’s okay to use multiple H1 headings.
I have always maintained that it is best to use heading elements as they were originally conceived, i.e. with a hierarchical structure that indicates the level of importance.
This means an H1 on the page to indicate what the entire website is about. The rest of the headings follow a hierarchical structure, with H2 for each topic section and all subsections displayed with H3, and if the subtopic has subtopics, then down to H4.
An additional concern for those who use multiple H1 headings is the negative impact on accessibility for website visitors with screen readers, for example.
It is therefore up to you how you use H1 headings. The only recommendation is to think carefully about whether it makes sense and always approach the matter with a certain amount of reservation.
(H1) headings as an aid for the keyword ranking
In the years 2001 to 2005 there was a keyword ranking bonus with headline tags. At the time, it was necessary to use keywords in the headings. But we must not forget one thing: That was in the early 2000s.
But for some reason, this particular habit of viewing H1 as particularly important persists, even though we are in the age of AI and natural language processing.
For example, carry out a few searches in Google and you will see that this preference for headings no longer plays a role. Instead, you’ll find that the top-ranking pages rank accordingly because they are relevant to the topic, not because they have an exact match keyword phrase in their headline tags.
So in conclusion, it’s important to accurately describe the topic of the content with your headings and use headings to describe what a section of content is about.
This will help Google to better understand the content, because in 2021 Google will no longer evaluate exactly matching keywords, as was the case in 2001.
Today, Google rates the content, but not the keywords. It pays to look at the entire page under the question “What is this about?” and evaluate each section in relation to the overarching theme.