Google Says Fixing Headings Won’t Change Rankings via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google’s John Mueller answered a question on Reddit about heading elements, confirming a slight impact but downplaying its significance, saying a lot about how Google uses headings.

Hierarchical Heading Structure

Hierarchical and hierarchy in the context of heading elements (H1, H2, etc.) refers to the organization of headings in order of importance or structure. In this context, the word “importance” doesn’t mean importance as a ranking factor, it means importance to the structure of a web page.

Generally a web page could have one H1, indicative of the topic of the entire page and multiple H2 headings that signal what each section of a web page is about. For Google’s purposes, the first heading doesn’t have to be an H1, it can be an H2. Google isn’t mandated to use the first heading as the overall topic, it’s not a directive to their search algorithms where an SEO controls how Google interprets a heading.

The technical specifications of heading elements are found on the pages of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the standards making body that, among many things, defines the purpose and use of HTML elements like headings.

Google generally follows the official W3C technical specifications of HTML elements but for practical purposes isn’t strict about it because many websites use headings for style not semantic purposes.

Are Incorrectly Ordered Headings Harmful To SEO?

The Redditor wanted to know if using the heading elements out of order was “harmful” and to what degree. They used the word “sequential” but the precise word is hierarchical.

They wanted to know how bad was it if the headings were out of order or if one of the headings was skipped entirely.

This is the question:

“How Harmful is having Non sequential header Tags? Like having a h4 title and h1 tags below Or Having a h4, h3 h5 but not h2 tags?”

H1, H2 Headings Have A Slight Impact

Google’s John Mueller confirmed that the heading order has a slight impact. He didn’t say it was a ranking factor nor did he say what kind of impact the heading order had. It could be that the heading order makes it easier for search engines to understand the web page, which is what I believe (meaning, it’s just my opinion and you’re entitled to yours).

This is Mueller’s answer:

“Doing things properly (right order headings) is a good practice, it helps search engines lightly to better understand your content, and it’s good for accessibility. If you’re setting up a new site, or making significant changes on your templates, or just bored :-), then why not take the extra 10 minutes to get this right.”

Sometimes it’s difficult to control the headings because a template might use headings to style sections of a web page, like in the footer or a sidebar. In the context of a WordPress site that means having to create a child template that controls the styles and change the CSS for those sections of the template so that they use CSS and not headings to style them.

Other than that, the heading structure is entirely under control of the publisher, site owner, or SEO.

Yet, having the keywords in the headings might not be enough because the purpose of heading elements is to communicate what a section of a web page is about and, as Mueller goes on to say, headings play a role for accessibility.

Google Says Fixing Headings Won’t Change Rankings

This is the part that some SEOs may find confusing because Google says that fixing the hierarchical structure of headings will not improve the rankings of a website.

A long time ago, like twenty four years ago, heading elements were a critical activity for ranking in Google. I know because I was an SEO in the early 2000s and experienced this first hand. By 2005 the impact to rankings had significantly diminished. I know it was diminished because I was a digital marketer when headings stopped making a critical impact and had evolved to become a signal of what a section of a web page is about.

The search results were full of sites that had no heading elements, it was hard not to notice the change.

But for some reason many in the SEO industry continued to believe that headings are a strong ranking factor. John Mueller’s statement about the diminished impact of heading elements to search rankings confirms the changed role that heading elements play today.

Mueller continued his answer:

“That said, if you have an existing site, fixing this isn’t going to change your site’s rankings; I suspect you’ll find much bigger value in terms of SEO by looking for ways to significantly up-value your site overall.”

What Mueller is talking about is the difference between making a web page for search engines (worrying about how Google will interpret heading elements) and creating a web page for users (worrying if the page contains useful information that is on-topic flows in a logical order).

His statement gives a clue to how Google uses heading elements and is good advice.

Read the discussion:

Non Sequential header tags?

Google’s Guidance About The Recent Ranking Update via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google’s Danny Sullivan explained the recent update, addressing site recoveries and cautioning against making radical changes to improve rankings. He also offered advice for publishes whose rankings didn’t improve after the last update.

Google’s Still Improving The Algorithm

Danny said that Google is still working on their ranking algorithm, indicating that more changes (for the positive) are likely on the way. The main idea he was getting across is that they’re still trying to fill the gaps in surfacing high quality content from independent sites. Which is good because big brand sites don’t necessarily have the best answers.

He wrote:

“…the work to connect people with “a range of high quality sites, including small or independent sites that are creating useful, original content” is not done with this latest update. We’re continuing to look at this area and how to improve further with future updates.”

A Message To Those Who Were Left Behind

There was a message to those publishers whose work failed to recover with the latest update, to let them know that Google is still working to surface more of the independent content and that there may be relief on the next go.

Danny advised:

“…if you’re feeling confused about what to do in terms of rankings…if you know you’re producing great content for your readers…If you know you’re producing it, keep doing that…it’s to us to keep working on our systems to better reward it.”

Google Cautions Against “Improving” Sites

Something really interesting that he mentioned was a caution against trying to improve rankings of something that’s already on page one in order to rank even higher. Tweaking a site to get from position six or whatever to something higher has always been a risky thing to do for many reasons I won’t elaborate on here. But Danny’s warning increases the pressure to not just think twice before trying to optimize a page for search engines but to think three times and then some more.

Danny cautioned that sites that make it to the top of the SERPs should consider that a win and to let it ride instead of making changes right now in order to improve their rankings. The reason for that caution is that the search results continue to change and the implication is that changing a site now may negatively impact the rankings in a newly updated search index.

He wrote:

“If you’re showing in the top results for queries, that’s generally a sign that we really view your content well. Sometimes people then wonder how to move up a place or two. Rankings can and do change naturally over time. We recommend against making radical changes to try and move up a spot or two”

How Google Handled Feedback

There was also some light shed on what Google did with all the feedback they received from publishers who lost rankings. Danny wrote that the feedback and site examples he received was summarized, with examples, and sent to the search engineers for review. They continue to use that feedback for the next round of improvements.

He explained:

“I went through it all, by hand, to ensure all the sites who submitted were indeed heard. You were, and you continue to be. …I summarized all that feedback, pulling out some of the compelling examples of where our systems could do a better job, especially in terms of rewarding open web creators. Our search engineers have reviewed it and continue to review it, along with other feedback we receive, to see how we can make search better for everyone, including creators.”

Feedback Itself Didn’t Lead To Recovery

Danny also pointed out that sites that recovered their rankings did not do so because of they submitted feedback to Google. Danny wasn’t specific about this point but it conforms with previous statements about Google’s algorithms that they implement fixes at scale. So instead of saying, “Hey let’s fix the rankings of this one site” it’s more about figuring out if the problem is symptomatic of something widescale and how to change things for everybody with the same problem.

Danny wrote:

“No one who submitted, by the way, got some type of recovery in Search because they submitted. Our systems don’t work that way.”

That feedback didn’t lead to recovery but was used as data shouldn’t be surprising. Even as far back as the 2004 Florida Update Matt Cutts collected feedback from people, including myself, and I didn’t see a recovery for a false positive until everyone else also got back their rankings.

Takeaways

Google’s work on their algorithm is ongoing:
Google is continuing to tune its algorithms to improve its ability to rank high quality content, especially from smaller publishers. Danny Sullivan emphasized that this is an ongoing process.

What content creators should focus on:
Danny’s statement encouraged publishers to focus on consistently creating high quality content and not to focus on optimizing for algorithms. Focusing on quality should be the priority.

What should publishers do if their high-quality content isn’t yet rewarded with better rankings?
Publishers who are certain of the quality of their content are encouraged to hold steady and keep it coming because Google’s algorithms are still being refined.

Read the post on LinkedIn.

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