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HTML5: SEO Incompatibility (mikesingleton.net)

13 points by msingleton ↗ HN
I’m always encouraging people to forge ahead with HTML5 whenever possible, but it’s worth considering the SEO implications and incompatibilities that may arise until we know how search engines are handling HTML5.

15 comments

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geuis
The author shouldn't be changing his H2's to H1's. Just because you are switching from divs to article tags doesn't mean you change the < h* > tags.
msingleton
H2 would be best in a traditional HTML4 docuement, but in HTML5 each sectioning element has it's own document outline. The reason for this is to encourage you to use H1's for the most important content within each section.

In this case the most important content of the <article> section is the title, so an H1 would be best used here.

The point of this post is to show that by using this new guideline, it leads to problems if search engines are using the old HTML document outline.

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kyleslattery
This is a complete non-issue. I'd imagine it's very simple for Google, Bing, etc. to change how they rank headings on an HTML5 page verses something else.
msingleton
I completely hope that it's the case, and as I mention at the end of the article that could be the case.

Since HTML5 is still a moving spec, it's worth considering how you structure your header tags depending on how much belief you have that this is what search engines are actually doing, given how important the document outline is to SEO.

Semiapies
I get an "Exploit Link to Exploit Site (type 1317)" warning from AVG on this site.
msingleton
hm...there are no ads on the site, disqus?
Semiapies
I'm not disqus or talking about ads. I'm talking about the warning pop-up I get when I try to go to that site.
wgj
Chrome gives this warning:

    The website at www.mikesingleton.net contains elements from the site 85.234.191.190, which appears to host malware
jggube
Clicking on the site on Google Chrome, I got the standard-issue "Warning: Suspected Malware Detected."
wmeredith
Online Marketing Manager here. (I work for a small integrated marketing and online development agency in Kansas City.)

This is a non-issue. The only way this argument holds any weight is if the search engines ignore the new HTML5 tags, which is preposterous. Does anyone actually think that Google's search algorithm which looks at over 200 factors including such on-page nuances like keyword proximity, phrase groupings and even parses Flash for hyperlinks is going to ignore the new HTML tags?

There's no way that any of the search engines that are worth their salt will disregard the fact that an <H1> tag is wrapped in <aside> tags or <nav> tags or whatever when it comes to assigning significance to that string of text.

As a commenter stated below, HTML5 is a moving spec, so yeah it's risky to implement this approach now. However, by the time HTML5 is released it's a certainty that the new tags will enhance the search engines' understanding of page content. It will allow us to signpost the hierarchy in a more nuanced way than 6 levels of header tags.

This title is link bait in the negative sense of the word, i.e. it is not supported by the content that follows.

TLDR; this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, the HTML5 spec will be better for SEO.

msingleton
"However, by the time HTML5 is released it's a certainty that the new tags will enhance the search engines' understanding of page content."

This is exactly the point -- these HTML5 tags are being used in production today without people realizing that search engines may not being using the new document outline model since it's a moving spec.

The conclusion is to avoid using these new semantics until they are further developed to avoid an unexpected document outline.

lhorie
>> Here’s the big question: What do search engines do?

>>

>> Truthfully I don’t know (if you do, post in the comments!).

Yeah, definitely going to listen to this guy.

Seriously, though. We're way past tweaking html tags for improving rankings these days. Rather than wasting time debating whether you should use an h1 or h2, it's much smarter to focus your time on having good content and getting inbound links from other sites.