nrg_alpha Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 I am implementing header tags into my pages for SEO improvements. <h1> will be solely spoken for as the graphic header at the top of every page. The question I have is: Is there an adverse effect on a series of <h2> tags (with regards to spiders / site indexing) that have id's assigned to them? Example: <h2 id="mostRecent">Text goes here</h2>. I am using multiple h2 tags with different id's as graphic image sub-headers (in conjunction with CSS obviously) so that spiders see and take into account the hugey text-indented off screen h2 text while we only see the css background in it's place. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/139378-question-regarding-header-tags/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
dropfaith Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 to the best of my understanding on spiders and css headers they still rank the text of the header and pretty much ignore its id i assume the css for h2 will be display none so its not a visable thing and only an seo usage which wont have any adverse effects Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/139378-question-regarding-header-tags/#findComment-729135 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted January 4, 2009 Author Share Posted January 4, 2009 to the best of my understanding on spiders and css headers they still rank the text of the header and pretty much ignore its id Yeah, I know spiders don't take CSS into account. Just that every example of header tags I see, there is no attributes within the opening header tag in question. This is why I need to know if attributes including id's or classes for those tags will be a problem for spiders or not. I'm assuming that with say regex, it won't be an issue.. just tying to confirm. i assume the css for h2 will be display none so its not a visable thing and only an seo usage which wont have any adverse effects Actually, this SEO technique loads an image as a background within the header tag via CSS and indent the text offscreen via the text-indent rule. So the text is taken into account by spiders (as it is in the (x)html document), yet we see the remaining <h2> as a background (using display: none would take the <h2> tag out completely.. while this would leave the h2 tag within the document code, the background image would not be visible.) Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/139378-question-regarding-header-tags/#findComment-729160 Share on other sites More sharing options...
sKunKbad Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 I don't think image replacement of headers will actually penalize your site by itself. I've done it for sites that ranked well, even #1, so you obviously aren't going to be penalized enough to make a difference (or at all). I think Google is smart enough to realize what you are trying to do isn't bad. While the text-indent isn't my first choice for image replacement, I think all of the popular image replacement techniques are similar. I personally prefer to absolutely position the text and image in seperate divs, stacked one on top of the other, and use z-index for displaying the image. The benefit to this is that when images are turned off, your page will still make sense. And yes, people do use the web with images turned off. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/139378-question-regarding-header-tags/#findComment-733080 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted January 9, 2009 Author Share Posted January 9, 2009 I don't think image replacement of headers will actually penalize your site by itself. I've done it for sites that ranked well, even #1, so you obviously aren't going to be penalized enough to make a difference (or at all). I think Google is smart enough to realize what you are trying to do isn't bad. Oh, I know it isn't a 'black hat' technique or anything like that.. It's a way of using text for the spider to see and recongize (as images have no effect). I have implemented my header tags (with attributes) and there is no detrimental effect (in fact, it seems to be helping.. well, ok.. that and the fact that I submitted a sitemap.xml file to Google). So far, so good it seems. While the text-indent isn't my first choice for image replacement, I think all of the popular image replacement techniques are similar. I personally prefer to absolutely position the text and image in seperate divs, stacked one on top of the other, and use z-index for displaying the image. The benefit to this is that when images are turned off, your page will still make sense. And yes, people do use the web with images turned off. I think it's far easier to simply embed an image as a background to a header tag and offset the text, as I don't need mutiple divs stacked, nor do I need to use z-indexing... The overall markup is also lighter (not that an extra div or two is huge or anything...). As for disabling images within the browser, my site is an art-based one (meaning, it is built to view images).. without them, the site is pretty much rendered useless (even with text replacements)... so the target audience is for people who view images. If they have images disabled, they are on the wrong site. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/139378-question-regarding-header-tags/#findComment-733092 Share on other sites More sharing options...
sKunKbad Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 As for disabling images within the browser, my site is an art-based one (meaning, it is built to view images).. without them, the site is pretty much rendered useless (even with text replacements)... so the target audience is for people who view images. If they have images disabled, they are on the wrong site. Yes, you are obviously right. Your olsenportfolio.com site looks pretty nice. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/139378-question-regarding-header-tags/#findComment-733109 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted January 9, 2009 Author Share Posted January 9, 2009 Thanks for the compliment Still tweaking it (i.e. SEO). Getting there.. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/139378-question-regarding-header-tags/#findComment-733114 Share on other sites More sharing options...
atticus Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 I am implementing header tags into my pages for SEO improvements. <h1> will be solely spoken for as the graphic header at the top of every page. This is the wrong way to use the h1 tag. The technical definition of the h1 tag is "the most important header on the page". Google abides by this definition. Your h1 tag should match your title tag and should be unique on every page. http://www.mywebtronics.com/atlanta-seo/seo-header-tags/ Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/139378-question-regarding-header-tags/#findComment-733349 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted January 9, 2009 Author Share Posted January 9, 2009 I am implementing header tags into my pages for SEO improvements. <h1> will be solely spoken for as the graphic header at the top of every page. This is the wrong way to use the h1 tag. The technical definition of the h1 tag is "the most important header on the page". Google abides by this definition. Your h1 tag should match your title tag and should be unique on every page. Thanks for the heads up. This won't be a hard fix. Some PHP song & dance will fix this right up. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/139378-question-regarding-header-tags/#findComment-733660 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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