Is the H1 tag a Google ranking factor?

Can you improve your search ranking on Google by using the right keywords in the H1 tag?

In any case, how many H1 tags should you use on each page?

Over the years, there have been many controversies and misunderstandings about how Google views H1 content.

So is the H1 tag actually a ranking factor for Google? let’s see.

Disclaimer: H1 label as a ranking factor

Over the years, a large number of “best practices” and recommendations regarding the H1 label have been circulating. Among them:

• You should use a large number of H1 tags that load keywords to improve the ranking of specific keywords.
• Each page should have only one H1 tag, otherwise Google will punish you. (Degraded by algorithm? A Manual punishment? Hit fifty eyelashes with wet noodles in the town square? ).
• You should use your primary keywords at the beginning of the H1 tag, use your secondary keywords in the H2 tag, and so on to tell Google which terms you want to rank for.
• You should only use one H1 tag, and it should be the first text element on the page.

If you are confused by conflicting information on this topic, I don’t blame you.

After all, this is a featured snippet [how to use H1 tags] At the time of writing:

As you will learn below, this contradicts everything Google has told us about the H1 tag over the years.

Let’s take a look at what happened on both sides of this debate.

Evidence of H1 label as a ranking factor

For this timeline, we will rely heavily on Roger Montti’s research on how Google’s perception and weight of H1 tags have evolved over the years. His main findings include:

1998

Page title is a very important ranking factor, as evidenced by this passage in a research paper by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Analysis of large-scale hypertext network search engine:

“For most popular topics, when PageRank prioritizes results, the performance of simple text matching searches limited to page titles is admirable.”

2003-2004

Font size was originally a measure of the importance of a word, and was later replaced by HTML structure as a ranking algorithm.

In the patent, we have a preliminary understanding of how Google uses HTML tags to inform the algorithm of its understanding of semantic structure. Google patents document ranking based on semantic distance between terms in documents.

Bill Slavsky Analyzed this patent In 2010 and explained:

“A process behind this method involves search engines analyzing the HTML structure on the page, looking for elements such as titles and titles on the page… In other words, search engines try to locate and understand the visual structure on the page. It may have semantic meaning. Pages, such as a list of items associated with the title.”

Read Monty’s H1 headings for SEO-why they are important Learn more about each of the above milestones.

2005-2011

In the glorious years of article marketing, H1 tags are widely regarded as Google ranking factors-optimizing them is a key SEO strategy. I know this because in the past, I used to get a small share of revenue from articles on Suite101, WikiHow, HubPages and other similar sites, and even some ghostwriting contracts.

Optimize H1 and H2 tags, Keyword density, And formulaic content ruled this day. Because these articles are used to build links and drive revenue sharing traffic, for content creators, the quantity is much more important than the quality or utility of the content produced.

And I can confirm that using these strategies allows me to rank first on topics and keywords for which I don’t really have a commercial ranking (Mesothelioma, anyone?).

Legitimate publishers objected to this, so Then came Google Panda in 2011. These strategies are no longer effective and, in fact, may reduce the ranking of the entire website.

Just ask the media on demand.

For those sites that were obliterated by the Panda algorithm, Google revealed 23 questions Help search engines determine the authority of a piece of content.

The user experience has been given a great priority-the revenue share I received from the content farm eventually disappeared.

Let’s fast forward to…

2019 year

recent, John Muller explained In the 2019 Google Webmaster Hangouts, Google used HTML tags to better understand the entire content of the page and its content. It doesn’t matter how many H1 tags you use, he said, noting:

“Your website will rank very well without the H1 tag or with five H1 tags.

…The H1 element is a great way to provide more structure to the page so that users and search engines can understand which parts of the page belong to different titles.

…Especially in HTML5, it is completely normal to have multiple H1 elements on the page, and it is also expected. “

Side note: If you want to learn more about how many H1 tags are used on a webpage, please check the Google only likes one H1 myth per page here.

2020 year

Mueller resolved a problem with the H1 tag in the Google Webmaster Center video August 2020. He clearly referred to the title as a ranking factor and said:

“The title on the page helps us better understand the content on the page. The title on the page is not the only ranking factor we have-we also check the content on our own.

But sometimes there is a clear title on the page that allows us to learn more about the content of the section. “

He explained that the title is particularly useful for helping Google understand the content and context of the image.

2021

August, there is a lot about Google rewrites title tags For a limited number of pages in search results. Usually, the text from the H1 tag is used as the new title on the search engine results page (SERP).

Evidence against the H1 label as a ranking factor

Even in 2009, Google was well aware of the spam strategy surrounding the H1 label.For example, Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s spam team at the time This video For Google Search Center:

“Don’t do all H1, and use CSS to make it look like normal text, because we see competitors complaining about this. If the user turns off CSS or CSS fails to load, it looks really bad.”

At the time, he said “a little H1 here and a little H1 there” is okay, but it should be used in the intended way: for the title.

He added:

“…If you try to throw H1 anywhere on the page, people will try to abuse it, so our algorithm will try to take this into account. So it doesn’t do you much good.”

Like many good things, SEO professionals use it to play with the system to beat that lame man.

H1 label as a ranking factor: our judgment

In the early days of SEO, the text elements on the page were an important weighting factor in the Google search algorithm.

The specific words used, where they appear on the page, and the font size in which they appear tell Google the importance of these words. This is how Google determines the relevance of a web page to any given query.

This is what Google used in the late 90s and early 00s, because it didn’t have much other things to do.

Like many previous ranking factors, the H1 factor was quickly used as an easy way to manipulate rankings. Over-optimizing H1 makes them the target of the spam team, causing them to depreciate.

Today, H1 tags and other structured HTML elements still help Google understand how content on any given web page is presented to users. They still help Google determine the relevance and semantic structure of web pages.

They inform the algorithm of the understanding of the content of the page, its purpose, and why it is/not the best answer for any given query.

Mueller has confirmed that the title is a Google ranking factor.

Having said that, it is not important in itself. Trying to use H1 to play with your own way by using a lot of SERPs, filling them with keywords, or trying to hide the entire page of H1 using CSS to get to the top of the SERPs will not work.

no longer.

When it comes to page optimization, your main goal should always be user experience.

This is the most important thing for Google, and it applies to your H1 tags as well as your content quality, image optimization, etc.

Featured image: Paul Bobita