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Re: page should contain no more than two h1 elements

for

From: Dean Hamack
Date: Jun 15, 2009 12:20PM


I don't think it "harms" the end user or adversely affects accessibility to
use more than one h1. It will however hurt your Google rankings, and it's a
violation of semantics/best practices.


On 6/15/09 10:52 AM, "Karl Groves" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Just playing Diablo Advocatus a bit here, but I'm unaware of any
> information - normative or informative - in any accessibility guidelines,
> be it Section 508, WCAG 1.0 or WCAG 2.0 which dictates the use of one and
> only one H1 element. In fact, the only information presented specific to
> the elements H1-H6 discusses it informatively and the guidelines say two
> things: 1) Developers shouldn't skip levels (i.e. no H1 to H3) and, 2)
> Developers shouldn't use headings to create font effects.
>
> This begs the question: What is the actual harm done to end users if
> multiple H1s are presented in a document? (Barring, of course, the misuse
> of them because they're out of order).