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Re: Headings, WCAG, Google and Me

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From: Peter Krantz
Date: Jan 24, 2007 7:00AM

On 1/24/07, Rainer Wagener < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> Some people argued that Google utilizes <h1> and <h2> for ranking
> purposes as <h3> to <h6> is considered plain text.

I would argue that this is where SEO optimization goes bad. You let an
hypothesis about the behaviour of a specific application (Google) have
preference over the logical structure of the document. By using H1
where e.g. H3 should be used you are likely to confuse screen reader
users or others that use the headings as a document overview.

Experience shows us that Google are:

1. keeping the exact behaviour of their ranking algorithms secret,
2. constantly changing their algorithm.

In my opinion this is a rather weak foundation to base your markup
decisions on. Will you change the content as Google updates their
algorithm?

regards,

Peter Krantz
http://www.standards-schmandards.com