Do pages with fewer headings rank higher?

[PhilipGledhill]

I've found several good quality, high ranking pages with excellent content, 500 to 1000 words. These pages are made by people who obviously know what they're doing.

These pages only have one headline the h1 at the top of the page.

Some of the sites use CSS div boxes and other things to make text look like a heading but do not have h2 or h3 tags or bigger font size.

Could it be that a single headline tells Google that this page is about a single topic and that several sub headings muddy the water and so reduce page rank.

Do multiple headings or subheadings affect page rank or is it just a personal style choice?

[KevinBudzynski]

I think good organization (with subheadings) that increases the user experience actually helps rankings as it will encourage inbound links and time-on-site.

[TommyTan]

Hi Philip,

Having multiple H1 header doesn't affect page rank.  It is ok to have multiple H1 header for each section.  However, don't over do it.  Don't use H1 for the whole page because Google will see that and will take that into consideration in the algorithm.  The attached video from Google Webmaster's Youtube page explains that.

Hpoe this helps Phil.

watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM

[MikeRoberts]

I don't think that its fewer heading tags making the page rank better, I think that the pages are probably good enough that it doesn't matter there are no subheadings. From my understanding, breaking an article or blog post or page into subheadings and sub-categories by using the various header tags will help with ease of readability. Sometimes people scan the whole page prior to reading (or leaving) and want to see if there's anything to catch their interest. Having a pertinent h2, h3 or h4 could possibly get those people to stop and read a bit when they may otherwise have just left from impatience. I think too many header tags can be a bad thing though. If your page has gotten to the point where you have one h1, four h2s, 10 h3s, 27 h4s, 17 h5s.... then you may be doing it wrong.

[PhilipGledhill]

Thanks Tommy, Kevin and Mike.

Everything you say is just how I've been taught and sites like SEOmoz and Wordtracker agree with this approach. Just as importantly, user experience and common sense say that proper use of subheadings is the right way to do things.

What I'm not sure about is why some top rate SEO consultants don’t use subheadings at all. Sometimes they've gone to the trouble of making it obvious (using CSS) that some lines are headlines but don't use h2 tags etc.

I was wondering if there were any benefits in doing this.

[TommyTan]

Hi Philip,

It is strange that top rate SEO consultants are doing so.  In the video that I've attached, Matt Cutts also mentioned that some people use ALL H1 headers and used CSS to make it look like it is not and got a lot of compliants.  I believe Google is able to catch that so thats why I'm saying it is strange for top rate SEO consultants are doing that.

[PhilipGledhill]

Hello Tommy
This is the type of site I'm talking about. It's full of good content, ranks highly and looks professional.

http://www.seomark.co.uk/how-many-backlinks/

But the pages that have what look like subheadings are just CSS classes. Many of the pages don't have any sub headings at all.

The person who made the site obviously knows what he's doing, I wondered if he knew something I don't.