Don't use an h1 and just use h2's?

[Dave_Whitty]

We just overhauled our site and as I was auditing the overhaul I noticed that there were no h1's on any of the pages. I asked the company that does our programming why and he responded that h1's are spammed so much so he doesn't want to put them in. Instead he put in h2's. I can't find anything to back this up. I can find that h1's are over-optimized but nothing that says to skip them altogether. I think he's crazy. Anyone have anything to back him up?

[bfrl]

I have very little to back him up.

I appreciate that h1 tags are over-optimised when they are poorly executed (e.g. keyword stuffing or using more than one instance of a h1 per page) however the same can be said for h2 tags.

If I were in your position I would look for further clarification of what he sees as over-optimized h1 tags.

[Adam.Whittles]

To be fair, your programmer probably doesn't have a huge understanding about SEO and has probably just misunderstood something he has read somewhere.

Yes h1 tags can be over optimized and can have an effect but the simple answer is, don't over optimize the h1 tags. Just because some people abuse them isn't a good reason to exclude them. In fact, I would actively encourage you not to exclude them as they are an important part of your on-page SEO strategy.

[Dave_Whitty]

I feel the same way. Thanks for the moral support!

[bronxpad]

I think that basic on page seo needs to be followed. Meaning that you should have one h1 on the page and above the fold. That will signal to google the importance of that phrase. The rest should be h2 and h3 but used sparingly. This will give google something to compare the h1 to. I know some sites make the mistake of putting all there keywords on the main page in h1, that doesn't work and hurts the site in rankings. I'm not sure what your programmers thinking is, maybe he has knowledge that I don't have which is very possible but from my experience and constant reading of seo best practices h1 implemented correctly helps.