Multiple H1 Tags

[AndyBorrett]

We are in the process of re-designing our site and following the SEO workshops at the conference decided to check our H1 tags, Titles, Page names etc.

What I have found is that on a default Sellerdeck site using the Silverback theme it generates two sets of H1 tags on pages with filtering.
I have uploaded a test site ( http://www.avbdesigns.co.uk/acatalog/test/index.html ) click on the Wedding Jewellery section and view the source.
You will see one set of H1 tags around Wedding Jewellery and another set around Wedding Jewellery in the breadcrumb trail.

I presume this will be bad from an SEO point of view, or am I getting this all wrong?

Also it seems as if Sellerdeck is putting in the H1 tags itself somehow as they do not appear in any of the relevant layouts.

[NormanRouxel]

They're in (e.g.) Tabular Best Sellers List but you have to click the Click here to edit list layout settings to get to them.

Unfortunately (YASB) the Find doesn't seem to look inside list layout settings.

[Mike Hughes]

YASB ?

Urban dictionary tells me this means either:

You Are So Blessed

or

You're A Stupid B**ch



Mike

[NormanRouxel]

Noooo! It's Yet Another SellerDeck Bug. The successor to the much loved YAAB. This one's only been there since 2006, I think!

[peblaco]

The H1 tags on the filtered page are in Section Page Body layout and cannot be found on searching because SellerDeck 2013 now has inline styling on variables such as <actinic:variable formatting="h1" name="SectionName" /> and the tags are duplicated as the layout has two sets of code, standard and a hidden set for filtered results.

[AndyBorrett]

Many thanks Norman and Louise.

I have used a combination of your suggestions to remove the unwanted extra H1 tags. I will be spending the next few days going through all the different type of pages to see if sellerdeck is putting extra tags that should not be there.

I need to try and get this filtering sorted too as it seems a very powerful feature but difficult to alter the layouts.

[brucet]

Before you spend hours doing that, you might want to check out this video from Matt Cutts which explains Google's attitude to multiple H1 tags: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM

[AndyBorrett]

Thanks Bruce.

Is it just me that finds trying to workout which bits are important for SEO to be a nightmare?
Mr Google says it is OK to have more than 1 h1 tag whereas Bing tells me it is a critical error to have more than one.

[brucet]

Thanks Andy, I had not heard that of Bing. Unfortunately I can't tell you what effect that might have on your Bing rankings or your search traffic :-(

The HTML specification does not impose a limit of 1 on the number of H1 tags, so Google is correct in not doing so. But if Bing is important to you, then you may have no choice but to do what they say.