H1 and H2 without H3

[holidayz]

For SEO, does it matter if you have H1 and H3 tags without any H2 tags on the page?

[Indiainternet]

This is like
Ist heading
2nd heading
3rd heading

So obviously google robots do consider that !st heading is important than 2nd and followed by 3rd.

In factuse h1 and h2 and then take the help of css to customize it.

Hopefully u get better ranking following this strategy.

[Indiainternet]

Also google robot always give more relevency to h1, followed by h2 followed by h3 tags.
All these tags has more relevency than bold tag in the text og the web page.

[thefandango]

The H1/2/3 thing is a bit of a red herring. Research by some influential SEO firms has shown that the h1 tags do not influence rankings much, if at all. Wasting time trying to get ordered h1/2/3's into your pages and then using css to change their look is time wasted that could be spent looking for decent backlinks!

[thefandango]

This may have been true back in 2005...

Originally Posted by Indiainternet

Also google robot always give more relevency to h1, followed by h2 followed by h3 tags.
All these tags has more relevency than bold tag in the text og the web page.

[wige]

From a purely SEO standpoint, I don't think it would matter. However, from a practical standpoint it may be better to use the h2 tags so you have h3 tags available if you want to put in subheadings. While you can use CSS to style these tags however you want, I have seen sites rendered without CSS because of server issues, and even viewed on clients that just didn't support CSS. By having a traditional heirarcy to the heading tags, the document remains readable even without the formatting of the CSS.

[findonline]

Once you are done with your page, take a look at it without the CSS turned on and see if it makes sense from a header / subheader / subsubheader perspective with your keywords, etc. and that way you will know if you have things in the right place.

[chowell]

Originally Posted by findonline

Once you are done with your page, take a look at it without the CSS turned on and see if it makes sense from a header / subheader / subsubheader perspective with your keywords, etc. and that way you will know if you have things in the right place.

Sounds like good advice... it should be more about organization & the user, more so than which works better for SEO. H1 should be top level, H2 sub-levels of top level, and so on.

[kettlewell]

Not quite sure what the point of skipping the H3 is , but it sounds a bit fishy... and anything that sounds fishy to me is always something that I try to stay away from.

Google has always maintained that hierarchy of documents is relevant, so if you have an H3 without an H2 it is possible (and likely) that Google will notice something fishy too.

[Indiainternet]

Better is to try it out and see, Hi heading all the time an so far have a good amount of success in ranking well in Ist page of serp.
And mind it is hust one of the hundreds of factors taken into consideration by the Robots.

[danners02]

Using these tags correctly in a semantic manner will help visually impaired people, and I believe search engines look favourably on this. H3 has less weight than H2 as well.

[Peter (IMC)]

The only advice is to use h1, and if you use subheaders, use an h2, etc.

Besides that, DON'T worry about it. It's not going to make a huge difference. Going up or down 1 or 2 positions is not going to change your overall traffic. Don't waste your time on tweaking.

[rfuess]

REF: "Going up or down 1 or 2 positions is not going to change your overall traffic"

Actually - going up or down 1 or 2 positions on the first page makes a huge difference. The amount of traffic you get for the first position is significantly more than the second position... and MUCH more than the 3rd or 4th.

Anything you do to clearly represent the structure / importance of one set of text over another is a good thing. I almost always use h1. Some pages have h2 or h3, depending on the structure or needs of the page. It is just good design. Skillful use of these header tags has been an important part of any SEO bag of tricks. Ignoring a such a tool because some stats show it to be not a "significant" factor in one search engine in their analysis may be a bad idea. There may be other factors that brought another website above yours... something to definately analyze - but dont forget the basics.

Of course, no one trick should dominate. Different search engines weight different factors differently. Focus on good design practices - use code in a manner that it clearly identifies the page elements.. even the meta tags. Do it with the user in mind and with handicap users in mind also.. and you will do fine.

Getting links pointing to your page has been touted as the most critical element... but good optimization of your page may mean a difference in the number of visitors - and ultimately people making purchases. Always start with good design - then work on marketing.

Proper use of h1, h2 and h3 tags is part of good design. The value of using a h3 over a bold tag... or other markup to show imporance may be negligable... But if you think that is is proper identifying of your page structure - do it. Sometimes it is the negligable things that accumulate to help your position.

If you have a h1 and h3... on one page - shouldnt be a big deal, especially if you normally use a h2 only in a specific section of the layout and just dont use it on one particular page.
If you consistantly use a h1 and h3 throughout your site - and no h2, you may reconsider. Normally if you have a h3, you would have a h2 also... And yes, h2 is weighed slightly more than a h3.

[aadhar]

Hi

I think serial no.. is require means h1 after h2 after h3 i can't use like h1 after h3

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by rfuess

REF: "Going up or down 1 or 2 positions is not going to change your overall traffic"

Actually - going up or down 1 or 2 positions on the first page makes a huge difference. The amount of traffic you get for the first position is significantly more than the second position... and MUCH more than the 3rd or 4th.

Anything you do to clearly represent the structure / importance of one set of text over another is a good thing. I almost always use h1. Some pages have h2 or h3, depending on the structure or needs of the page. It is just good design. Skillful use of these header tags has been an important part of any SEO bag of tricks. Ignoring a such a tool because some stats show it to be not a "significant" factor in one search engine in their analysis may be a bad idea. There may be other factors that brought another website above yours... something to definately analyze - but dont forget the basics.

Of course, no one trick should dominate. Different search engines weight different factors differently. Focus on good design practices - use code in a manner that it clearly identifies the page elements.. even the meta tags. Do it with the user in mind and with handicap users in mind also.. and you will do fine.

Getting links pointing to your page has been touted as the most critical element... but good optimization of your page may mean a difference in the number of visitors - and ultimately people making purchases. Always start with good design - then work on marketing.

Proper use of h1, h2 and h3 tags is part of good design. The value of using a h3 over a bold tag... or other markup to show imporance may be negligable... But if you think that is is proper identifying of your page structure - do it. Sometimes it is the negligable things that accumulate to help your position.

If you have a h1 and h3... on one page - shouldnt be a big deal, especially if you normally use a h2 only in a specific section of the layout and just dont use it on one particular page.
If you consistantly use a h1 and h3 throughout your site - and no h2, you may reconsider. Normally if you have a h3, you would have a h2 also... And yes, h2 is weighed slightly more than a h3.

So then let's talk about what is a first position. It often simply is a fourth position anyway, after 3 Adwords positions.

80% of the results you get through 20% of work.

Keep tweaking though. It's a lot of fun,... which, for many people, in the end is more important than actual results.

[Indiainternet]

I agree with you pt. rfuess, of view and would always keep in mind that
"Always start with good design and then work on marketing"
I believe this itself explains the motive of our discussion

Thanks

[Sam_Jones]

Just as Peter suggested, only use H2 if you have sub-headers, it really won't make much difference.

[nickoran]

Ive had this issue before where ive structured a cms into section (h1), category(h2) and article(h3), but where I havent published the category or simply put an article in the section rather than in a category the page ends up having h1, h3 and misses the h2. i really dont think that it makes a difference, if i was hand coding it i would change it to 1,2,3 etc but as its in the cms and style sheets etc its just a lot of extra work.