[thelist] A question of semantics and tags

Wed Oct 21 15:44:55 CDT 2009

On 2009-10-20 Paul Bennett wrote:

>You can / should only have one h1 per page (as per the (X)HTML spec and
>better for SEO)

There's nothing in the HTML 4 (or XHTML) specs that specify that 
only one h1 tag per page is allowed.

<body>
<h1>foo!</h1>
<h1>bar!</h1>
</body>

Validates just fine as any of the html flavors, including the stricts.

Personally I think it makes more sense to have just one, and 
usually author that way, but then I like outlines. One can 
certainly make a reasonable argument for more than one h1 on a 
page, and given the mashup nature of today's web, it's not uncommon.

The html5 sectioning and headings have been modified to be more 
flexible in this regard:

<http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#headings-and-sections>

And I think will be much more useful.

As for SEO, I'd really doubt that any of the search engines 
would penalize multiple h1's, but then I don't follow the weekly 
google dance music.

HTH,

-Steve

-- 
Steve Axthelm
steveax at pobox.com