H1 tag in site name and page title - SEO? [#1434728]

I'm optimizing my site and came across this possible problem: the H1 tag is used twice, in the site name and the page title. According to most SEO and standards types we should have only one H1 tag per page.

I was thinking I'd just change the site name to something else (since my H1 should be for the particular page, not the same across the whole site) but took a look in this queue first. This really confused me, in #657874: h1 formatting for <front> when not using "node" in "default front page" you said "The current logic for the page title / site name is for accessibility standards where only one H1 should be used in any one page.", and then closed it as fixed. In #944088: HTML5 DOM needs some thought it also seems like you may have done this on purpose. Do you know something about H1 tags that I don't?

I mentioned not posting support tickets in this queue any longer, but thought I'd risk offending you again in the chance that someone else will come along with the same question. Thanks for your time!

Comments

Comment #1

Jeff Burnz commented 10 February 2012 at 06:14

OK, here goes:

Headings get totally different treatment in HTML5, we have to throw away everything we knew about this from HTML4/XHTML.

In earlier versions of HTML we only had headings (h1 - h6), there are no other sectioning elements at all. That is why we had to be very careful about our usage of the h1 tag, and there was always controversy regarding it usage. One of the issues you link to above is for the D6 version of this theme which was XHTML 1.1, and includes some of that controversy in its discussion.

In HTML5 the sectioning is much more powerful. We have a whole bunch of new elements for sectioning and the algorithm used to generate the outline is far more complex, and flexible. In short, it no longer matters how many h1 tags we have on a page.

We must still adhere to a structured approach and be careful to generate the right outline (one that reflects the proper structure of the document), and this is what this theme does.

To conclude and clarify, in HTML5 it doesnt matter if there is multiple h1 tags on a page, what matters is how they are used in conjuntion with the other sectioning elements, and that the outline produced represents the correct structure of the document.