Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

      Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Get found
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
      Moz API

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Is single H1 tag still best practice?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Is single H1 tag still best practice?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    6
    5
    47754
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • kayl87
      kayl87 last edited by

      Hi Guys,

      Is having a single h1 tag still best practice for SEO?

      Guessing multiple h1 tags dilute the value of the tag and keywords within the tag.

      Thoughts?

      Cheers.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • KMBirdsong
        KMBirdsong last edited by

        That's just laziness on their part, they should update to have an H1 on every page.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • predmantps
          predmantps last edited by

          MOZ site crawl indicated we had missing H1’s as well as the canonical tags on almost all of our pages. We work with a website company that has been building their websites from many years ago, but they have very useful tools for printers. They seem to have everything listed as H2's. I was told it would take a lot of effort on their part to make the H1’s. Are H2's sufficient?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • nhhernandez
            nhhernandez last edited by

            From what I read here, the use of multiple H1 tags depends on what HTML version you are using. If it's HTML4 or XHTML, only use one H1 per page, but if you are using HTML5 you can have one per section. HTML5 uses the new semantic elements like

            <header>and

            <footer>to work out the hierarchy, with headings only affecting hierarchy within one of those tags.

            Source: https://moz.rainyclouds.online/community/q/how-will-it-effect-seo-to-have-multiple-h1-tags-on-a-page

            </footer>

            </header>

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • GastonRiera
              Gaston Riera last edited by

              Hi there!

              There are some theories that include a single H1 as a best practice.
              Although, a few months ago, google said that its just fine to have several H1 tags.
              My site's template has multiple H1 tags - Google Webmasters Youtube Channel

              Of course, those multiple H1 tags must be correctly used. Google does understand those tags and comprehends whether are correctly used. Try using h2, h3 or other, as long as the content requieres them.
              Your principal concern should be creating exceptional content, not having more than one H1 tag.

              Hope it helps.
              Best luck.
              GR

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              Browse Questions

              Explore more categories

              • Moz Tools

                Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

              • SEO Tactics

                Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

              • Community

                Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

              • Digital Marketing

                Chat about tactics outside of SEO

              • Research & Trends

                Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

              • Support

                Connect on product support and feature requests.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • Brenda.Haines

                Looking for opinions on structuring meta title tags/page title/menu title/H1

                Hi everyone I am hoping a few of you can share your opinions. I have been having conversations (okay, healthy debates) about how to write/structure meta title tag and how to compliment them with the H1, page title, menu name. To help explain the thought processes I will use a pretend keyword. How about "screwdriver". Case: (I made this up) we are redesigning a website for a construction tools manufacturing company (pretend name: ABC Tools) targeting OEMs who are interested in purchasing large quantities of tools. The product categories (to become main menu items) are Screwdrivers, Nails, Drills, and Hammers. (bear with me .... this is just an example I am making up on the fly) K. Circling back to screwdrivers - let's say we have one landing page (a primary category page and in the main menu) listing products and great details about screwdrivers. Focus keywords are screwdriver manufacturer, screwdriver supplier, construction screwdrivers Below are questions being debated. If you are willing ... how would you address these questions? And, can you explain WHY? QUESTION ONE: How would you structure the meta title tag (feel free to write one of your own) Screwdriver Manufacturer - Construction Screwdriver | ABC Tools ABC Tools - US-based Screwdriver Manufacturer Supplier Near You High-Quality Screwdrivers for Construction with ABC Tools QUESTION TWO: how would you write the H1 on the page? Would it match the meta tag? OR, would you write something different using the primary keyword? QUESTION THREE Remembering this is not a blog post ... it is a primary landing page linked to the main navigation. What would the menu title be? (remember the product categories above are how the main menu items are bucketed) Screwdrivers Screwdriver Manufacturer Typically in WordPress, the H1 and the menu title is auto-populated using the page title (not the title tag)... So, if we use Screwdrivers as the page title but we want the H1 to match the meta title tag, would we manually change the H1? Or, have the page title and title tag match, but manually change the menu item?

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brenda.Haines
                1
              • ForumOne

                Ranking dropped after changing title tag

                I recently changed my company's site homepage title tag to make it start with our target keyword. The page was originally at page #7 or #8 and dropped to page #17 directly after I changed the page title. Is this normal? Is it's a temporary drop or should I change it back to the previous title.

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ForumOne
                0
              • phogan

                Redirected Old Pages Still Indexed

                Hello, we migrated a domain onto a new Wordpress site over a year ago.  We redirected (with plugin: simple 301 redirects) all the old urls (.asp) to the corresponding new wordpress urls (non-.asp).  The old pages are still indexed by Google, even though when you click on them you are redirected to the new page. Can someone tell me reasons they would still be indexed? Do you think it is hurting my rankings?

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | phogan
                0
              • atourgates

                Best Practices for Converting PDFs to HTML

                We're working with a client who gets about 80% of their organic, inbound search traffic from links to PDF files on their site. Obviously, this isn't ideal, because someone who just downloads a PDF file directly from a Google query is unlikely to interact with the site in any other way. I'm looking to develop a plan to convert those PDF files to HTML content, and try to get at least some of those visitors to convert into subscribers. What's the best way to go about this?  My plan so far is: Develop HTML landing pages for each of the popular PDFs, with the content from the PDF, as well as the option to download the PDF with an email signup. Gradually implement 301 redirects for the existing PDFs, and see what that does to our inbound SEO traffic.  I don't want to create a dip in traffic, although our current "direct to inbound" traffic is largely useless. Are their things I should watch out for?  Will I get penalized by Google for redirecting a PDF to HTML content? Other things I should be aware of?

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | atourgates
                0
              • ShaqD

                Why is our pagerank is still only 3/10?

                Hi, Our site https://soundbetter.com has been live for 2 years now, and as of yet we haven't yet been able to get our PageRank above 3/10. We have thousands of unique pages and plenty of original contextual content, we avoid duplicate content best we can, follow google's best practices for site structure, deal with any issues that come up in webmaster tools, have schema.org markup, avoid link spamming, have inbound links from authority sites (though OSE doesn't show most of them for some reason), lots of social shares to our pages and the domain has been owned by us for 12 years. Any thoughts on why we would still have a PR of 3? Thanks for helping

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ShaqD
                0
              • PeteC12

                H2 Tags- Can you have more than 1 H2 tag

                Hi All, Screaming frog has identified that we have a few H2 tags on our pages , although we only have 1 H1 tag. We have numerous H3,H4's etc. I am wondering, is it good SEO to have only 1 H2 tag like with H1 tag or can you have more ? thanks Peter

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC12
                0
              • MeasureEverything

                Managing Subsidiaries. Should I house them all in a single domain? What about a single social media presence?

                Situation: My company has 8 subsidiaries. They each have their own niche (IT, Electrical, Roofing, etc...). We also have offices in multiple countries (If that's even a factor). Questions: 1. Should I establish a web presence for each one? (www.SubsidiaryOne.com)  I would then link to these sites from www.ParentCompany.com. The other options are to do something like www.ParentCompany.com/SubsidiaryOne or SubsidiaryOne.ParentCompany.com. We are trying to build the brand of the parent company so I figured that housing everything inside of the parent company domain would help me meet my goal. Each company will have its own unique content, products, blogs, etc... 2. Should each subsidiary have its own social media presence (Its own Google+, Twitter, FB, etc...) or should I house them all under the umbrella of the parent? Thanks, Alex

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MeasureEverything
                0
              • JohnPeters

                H2 Tag Backlink - is this safe?

                I have found that my site is getting a link from a good site, but my concern is that the link is in a H2 tag in the footer of the front page of the site Would getting a link from a site wrapped in H2 tags be safe? The anchor is my sites brand name

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              • Digital Marketers
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.