How important are <h1> tags to SE's?

[T Scott]

In trying to optimize for viewing in IE, Opera & Firefox, I have overlap in Firefox that seems to be from adding <h1> tags in the HTML. I think I can eliminate the overlapping by removing the tags. Any comments????

Thanks,
Tim

NashvilleOutdoors.net

[Bethers]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

The H1 tags should not cause overlapping. They are a code saying what that text is. Now, if the h1 tag is causing the text size to be bigger, which in turn causes the overlapping - then you'd be better off adjusting the size of the text, not removing the tags.

There are mixed reviews on the importance of H1 tags. I'm one who believes they've made a difference on my sites - if they are used correctly and properly - which the se's are getting smarter and smarter and know. But, if removed, and the headlines are used properly without them, it's possible that you'll get a similar response - just, in my opinion, it will take longer to get it.

[T Scott]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

Thanks Beth,
Somehow when I added <h1>, <h2>, etc. tags to the box headings on my site, firefox drops them like 1/2 of an inch, mixing them with another text box. I can't get it to work. Should I put the header tag inside the article instead of the box title? Opera seems to work GREAT when I try it.

[Collectors-info]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

Hi, its a real pain with FF & IE, Would be nice if someone can confer this is ok? What you maybe able to do, is place the text on the page as hidden (cant see it) with css.
Paste the code below into the head of your page. This will be ok for h1/2/3 tags

<style type="text/css">
h1 {color: #black; text-align: center; font-family: arial; font-size: 120%; visibility:hidden;}
h2 {color: #black; text-align: center; font-family: arial; font-size: 100%; visibility:hidden;}
h2 {color: #black; text-align: center; font-family: arial; font-size: 80%; visibility:hidden;}
</style>

Then put your h1 tag into the page using a html box. Like the one below.

<h1>Welcome to Nashville Outdoors adventure, recreation and conservation.</h1>

Good luck.
Hopefully beth will confer this is ok. as its a real pain trying to get these sort of tags on a tightly space page as you have.

[Bethers]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

I've had the problem with firefox dropping some things, also - not just these.

How are you now adding them? With an html box? Or by adding the h1 to the text element?

I would not use the "visibility hidden" in the method above - as that could be construed as hidden text to the se's - and end up hurting you.

But if what Chris has put in the above is your current h1 - it's not good for you anyway - NO ONE is searching for Welcome to. Get rid of that - and just keep the rest.

[navaldesign]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

Technical aspect apart: the h1 etc tags are showing the SEs the importance of a text line. Just like the headlines in a newspaper. So, in my opinion, they are important. However, they should not be used for every title, just the ones that are important from the page content point of view.

[Winntec]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

h1 tags still seem to be important from my experience
I fixed this as follows:
<style type="text/css">
h1 {margin-bottom:0em; margin-top:0em; color: #black; text-align: left; font-family: BlackChancery; font-size: 200&#37;; }
</style>
It's the different margin sizes that mess things up, by setting them directly to whatever suits you it overrides the FF & IE defaults.

John

[thatchman]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

Hi all - Can anyone perhaps tell me exactly where to put the h1 tags in the HTML here for the headline on my homepage - h1 tags do currently seem to be rather important to most search engines:

<font style="font-size:27px" color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial"><b>Do you want a piece of the</b> </font><font style="font-size:27px" color="#FF0000" face="Arial"><b>$1 500 000 000 000</font><font style="font-size:27px" color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial"></b> <b>that is traded 24/5, the most fluid financial instrument of all - i.e. the <u>Forex</u> (Foreign exchange) market? That's one with twelve zero's or </font><font style="font-size:27px" color="#FF0000" face="Arial"><i>one and a half trillion dollars</font><font style="font-size:27px" color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial"></i></b>!</font>

Tx in advance
Thatchman

[larazovich]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

Hi all - Can anyone perhaps tell me exactly where to put the h1 tags in the HTML here for the headline on my homepage - h1 tags do currently seem to be rather important to most search engines:

<font style="font-size:27px" color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial"><b>Do you want a piece of the</b> </font><font style="font-size:27px" color="#FF0000" face="Arial"><b>$1 500 000 000 000</font><font style="font-size:27px" color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial"></b> <b>that is traded 24/5, the most fluid financial instrument of all - i.e. the <u>Forex</u> (Foreign exchange) market? That's one with twelve zero's or </font><font style="font-size:27px" color="#FF0000" face="Arial"><i>one and a half trillion dollars</font><font style="font-size:27px" color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial"></i></b>!</font>

Tx in advance
Thatchman

Thatchman.
to put in the H1 tags..
Right click on the text box that holds your headline
In the before tag place put <h1>
In the after tag place put </h1>
That's it

You can do the same for H2 tags, too

Also, I had the same Firefox problem you describe, and I placed this code;

</script>
<style type="text/css">
h1 {margin-bottom:0em; margin-top:0em; color: #black; text-align: center; font-family: BlackChancery; font-size: 21px; }
</style>
<style type="text/css">

in the page html, between head tag area, and it took care of it, same as John suggested above.

[Karen Mac]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

Well if you put all that into an h1 tag, you will drive the search engine nuts! Think newspaper headline.. not newspaper paragraph.

Karen

[thatchman]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

Okay, so if the H1 tag shouldn't cover all the below html, what is the best option, the only real word I want highlighted is Forex, highlighted below, so could I place the H1 tags within that Html to just highlight that specific word, and if so exactly where?

<font style="font-size:27px" color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial"><b>Do you want a piece of the</b> </font><font style="font-size:27px" color="#FF0000" face="Arial"><b>$1 500 000 000 000</font><font style="font-size:27px" color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial"></b> <b>that is traded 24/5, the most fluid financial instrument of all - i.e. the <u>Forex</u> (Foreign exchange) market? That's one with twelve zero's or </font><font style="font-size:27px" color="#FF0000" face="Arial"><i>one and a half trillion dollars</font><font style="font-size:27px" color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial"></i></b>!</font>

Tx in advance.
Thatchman

[Bethers]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

An h1 is NOT a sentence - it is a headline - if you don't want to put a headline on the page, you might as well forget having an h1. If Forex is what's important - then make a headline with it and put it in the h1 tags.

[thatchman]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

Tx very much - that makes perfect sense.

Another question regarding SEO, if I may, Vodahits search engine submitter tells me that I have the following issue with all my pages:

WARNING: The page uses JavaScript blocks.

The use of JavaScript blocks affects the proximity and density of your search terms. If you have JavaScript embedded in your page, all the search terms that fall below the JavaScript block will have less proximity and the more JavaScript on the page, the more diluted the density of your search terms are.

There is an easy workaround for this issue. Simply place your JavaScript code in remote files. An example is as follows:

<script language="JavaScript" src="yourscript.js"></script>

Then place the JavaScript in the 'yourscript.js' file.

How important is this as regards search engine listing, i.e. if I ignore it can it possibly have a majorly detremental effect on my search engine listing?

If I fix it, where and how exactly must I place the remote files?

Tx in advance
Thatchman

[Karen Mac]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

This is most likely referring to your menu navigation. You can get around this problem by adding text links in your footer, or good keyword rich text links through out your page, and other pages.

Karen

[thatchman]

Re: How important are &lt;h1&gt; tags to SE's?

Tx, will do.

In your opinion, is a robots.txt file very important for a search engine friendly website?

Tx in advance
Thatchman