[whatwg] HTML5 Site Headers

[Ashley Sheridan]

On Thu, 2011-09-15 at 10:54 -0700, Kevin A. Cameron wrote:

> Thanks.
> 
> I guess my question is more related to SEO. I believe it is bad for SEO to
> have your site header use an H1, I was wondering if it was a similar case
> for the header element.
> 
> Splash page meaning a page that is shown before being directed to the actual
> site content - usually with a very limited amount of info.
> 
> Kevin
> 
> 
> On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 10:50 AM, Ashley Sheridan
> <ash at ashleysheridan.co.uk>wrote:
> 
> > I'd say yes, wherever you can look at something and say that's the header
> > for something. I'm not sure about your meaning of a splash page though...
> > Thanks,
> > Ash
> > http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
> > --
> > Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
> >
> >
> > "Kevin A. Cameron" <kevinacameron at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Is is appropriate to use the header element for a site header (not an
> >> article header)
> >> What about on a splash page that has no other content?
> >>
> >> Kevin
> >>
> >>


Well I'm not sure how you are creating the splash page, but you can't
determine where a user comes into your website, the idea of every
visitor coming in via your homepage is very 90's and not something you
can rely on.

Secondly, I don't think using an H1 tag for your site header is bad for
SEO. It really depends on what is in your site header. For example, a
lot of websites include the page title in the header, around or near the
logo. In this case, it would make perfect sense to use an H1 for that
title inside the header:

<header>
<img src="logo.png"/>
<h1>Page/Section Title</h1>
<nav>
    site nav goes here
</nav>
</header>

However, if the text in your header is the same on every page (i.e. a
site header) then it might not make sense as an <h1>. As far as SEO
goes, I would aim to make the <h1> unique per page on the site (which
I'm guilty of not doing on my own site!) and only use one per page. That
said, there's no hard and fast rule, so maybe play about over a period
of a couple of months (nothing is fast about SEO is it?!) and see which
method gives you better results?

-- 
Thanks,
Ash
http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk