This is a follow up test to the multiple H2 test that we did in the February dossier. In that test, we found that having more H2s than the control page’s average caused the test page to drop. We want to see if this result continues with H1s.
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This is the next test after doing the H2s that we did last month and as you recall, we found that a page that has more H2s on it than the average, drops. Just to reiterate, these are unoptimized signals/zones – there are no keywords and it was just having 5 zones on the page that caused it to drop where all the other control pages only had one. So we moved this to H1s. I am sure that you know the SEO rule of thumb to not have more than 1 H1 on the page. That is what we are testing here. Is it an automatic drop because there is two or is it kind of more of what we are seeing on those H2s.
In this particular test, we have our H1s which are unoptimized. We added five to the test page and all the other control pages only had one. Just with the H2s, the test page dropped to the bottom.
This is pretty exciting. What we are seeing here, I think, is a new ranking signal and it is a signal that nobody is talking about. What this signal is or this factor is, is having the correct number of total tag zones. We have seen this with H1s and H2s, the next test is on H3s to see if it continues. When SEOs are saying not to put 2 H1s on the page, I don’t think it is because there is an automatic penalty simply for just having two H1s, it is because the average is one and that is when we see a drop. It is not a hard and fast thing and I am sure you can find a page that has more than 1 H1 on it so it is not the immediate be all and end all. It is simply part of the ranking structure. I have also noticed that if you do some kind of SEO overseas, you will find a lot of pages that have a lot of H1s on them that are ranking quite well in other data centers in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, etc. I have seen a bunch in those areas that doesn’t seem to have much impact so I think this is really impacting some of the more competitive areas – US, Canada, and Australia I would imagine.
So, when you are optimizing your pages, something I would look for would be how many total zones or tags are on the page and I would count them individually to make sure that I got those numbers correct.