The Other Search Engines

**emory7** · 10-25-2002, 04:31 PM

I was wondering how important using H1 vs. the other heading tags at the top of a page is to search engines. I'm feeling like I made a mistake using H3 instead of H1. Any thoughts on this?

<h1>My Page</h1> or <h3>My Page</h3>

Also, does it matter to search engines if the H1 tag is in a table?

Thanks,

E

**DaveTodd** · 10-26-2002, 07:14 AM

emory,

having researched and written articles on the importance of heading tags, i can tell you that an H1 is generally viewed by search engines as more valuable to the user than an H3. The first title that you use at the top of a page should almost always be an H1. then the next an H2 etc.

always try and get keywords / phrases into the headings tags as well. the H1 being in a table shouldn't affect its worth because the engine will look for the <h1> tag rather than the fact that its in a table.

good luck with your rankings...

**emory7** · 10-26-2002, 11:06 AM

Thanks Dave! Looks like I've got some work to do now

**DaveTodd** · 10-26-2002, 11:24 AM

glad i could be of some help...i've got an article on the importance of headings lying around somewhere if you want to read through it. if you do, just PM me and i'll send it over.

there are many, many other things that you can do to optimise your site for the search engines, lots of the ideas and suggestions can be found within the threads on this forum. keep your eyes open for new hints and tips, they're always appearing!

hope this has helped you

**TimSchroeder** · 10-26-2002, 11:46 AM

I agree with Dave.

As well, here is a question I have not been able to find the answer to...

Does it matter if you use an H1 but then modifify the size for appearance reasons?

Ex.
h1><font color="#FF0033" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Your keywords</font></h1>

By the way Dave, I just got a job as the SEO for a large online software company

**DaveTodd** · 10-26-2002, 12:04 PM

grr

its alright for some init? i'm sat here at work, trying to find a php script for emailing a complete page to someone, a "recommend this page to a friend" script. how bored am i?

i'd much rather be doin some SEO or something that i knew would produce conclusive results. then again, we're about to hit our highest traffic figures since april, so not much to complain about.

as far as altering the appearence goes, i don't see why it should matter. unfortunately, its not possible to set the font and then define it as an <h1>, i just tried it. but no one seems to use the default setup, cause thats big, bold, and bad looking. i think customising the appearence shouldn't have too many repurcussions. the only danger is that the spider doesn't realise that that text is actually h1 and so doesn't weight it so much.

but...as far as i'm aware, spiders count all text between the tags as belonging to those tags. so all text between <h1> and </h1> should be counted as h1 text. if this is true, as i believe it is, then altering the appearence shouldn't have any bearing on the text being creditted as h1 text.

if that made any sense, i'll be very surprised!!