Linking inside a header Options

[stinhambo]

Does anyone have any experience of linking inside a header having any effect on the weight of the header?

I want to create a page with an several h2 headers which also act as links to the index page of that theme. The p content will contain links to specific pages within that theme.

For example - <h2><a href="">Header 2 General Keyword</a></h2>

Is it considered a bad thing with regards to SEO for a header to also act as a link?

Cheers guys and girls!

[Black_Knight]

Is it considered a bad thing with regards to SEO for a header to also act as a link?

Well, kind of. It is more that it is a counter-intuitive and pointless thing to do, rather than a 'bad' thing.

You see, no matter how you style your link, the text inside those anchor tags is already effectively rather like a H1 tag for the resource the link is pointed at. (In that the link text is a short, human-devised summary in just a few words that hopefull tells us what the page is about.)

Now, conversely, a H tag on your page is supposed to be a header, meaning the title at the head of whatever follows it. Yet by assigning a link to the H2 tag, you are saying that what is under the header isn't as important as what you are linking to. You create doubt in whether the heading is trying to describe the link, or whether the link is an essential reference to the section headed by it...

In SEO terms, there is no reason at all why the value of a link should be increased by how the link is styled. Placement of the link can matter a great deal, but whether the link is bold, italic, extra large, of a horrendous shade of green, really doesn't alter the meaning of the fact that it is a link, and therefore a citation.

[stinhambo]

Ah I see. Ok - Do you suggest a better way of wording the page -

e.g I was going to do this -

h1 - Company services description
p - blah blah

h2 - general service description (link to index of that service)
p - blah blah (with links to specific services within the above service area)

h2 - another general service description (link to index of that service)
p - blah blah etc...

IS it best not to have an index page giving a run down of what the general service entails and instead just have a plain h2 and have links to the specific areas within the paragraph below it?

[Black_Knight]

I'd personally go with

h2 - Headline for the following text (general service description/title)
p - blah blah blah ...
See our <a>Service Name</a> section for full details.

h2 - Headline for the following text (general service description/title)
p - blah blah blah ...
See our <a>Service Name</a> section for full details.

There may be a usability benefit to linking the H2 tag as you proposed in this instance. The way to be sure would be to test. The usability and conversion benefit may be worth far more than any SEO benefit would have been, and may even be worth more than a slight SEO handicap of course. Test and measure is always the answer.

[rmccarley]

I don't agree. I understand what B_K is saying and it does make sense but my gut tells me that isn't neccesarily right. The problem is I don't have any science to back it up. To me it also makes sense that a linked headline would carry more weight than regular text in a paragraph. After all, the headline itself carries more weight.

My $.02

[Scratch]

Try thinking at it from the search engine's point of view. The position the algo writers are coming from is trying to discern from the clues on the page what each page is really about. As BK says, headings are supposed to introduce or summarise the content that follows, so there's no reason for them to link to any different page.

Is there any reason why a link within a header would indicate more strongly that the content on the page linked-to is any more relevant than a link in a navigation list or inline in a paragrah? I don't think so. Putting a link inside a <h1> tag is weird, and seems to me a bit like SHOUTING. I'd be very surprised if there was any benefit at all.

[rmccarley]

Example:

<h1>Page title</h1>
<h2>Sub head</h2>
<p>Descriptive intro text</p>

<h3><a href=section1>Section 1</a></h3>
<p>Brief intro to section 1. At the end you can probably <a href=section1>click for more details...</a></p>

<h3><a href=section2>Section 2</a></h3>
<p>Brief intro to section 2. At the end you can probably <a href=section2>click for more details...</a></p>

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I mean, why not?

[eKstreme]

Not to mean to argue (I'm actually interested in learning about this!), but what about site headers? On a template, the site name (say MySite), could technically justify using an H1, and should be a link to the root of the site. It's a special case, but it seems to

1. justify and introduce the content of the link
2. serve a document-specific purpose.

Ideas?

[JohnMu]

Personally, I prefer H1 headers to NOT be site-headers but rather document / page headers (ie specific to the document, not to the site). It doesn't seem to make any sense to me why you should specify the same thing as the top title on every page in your site. I prefer a seperate link "home" to get me back :-). (or did I understand your question wrong, eKstreme?)

[Scratch]

Agree with softplus that headers should describe the current document.

rmmcarley, good point about the index with summaries. Totally with you on that. But is that link any more relevant than any other link to the same page, just because it's in a <h4>?

[bwelford]

Interesting topic. I think there are two interesting examples that serve as usability reasons for doing what is suggested.

It is recommended practice that the logo for the website up in the banner be a clickable link to the Home Page.

I also suggest that Breadcrumbs are doing exactly the same thing in a slightly different way.

[eKstreme]

It doesn't seem to make any sense to me why you should specify the same thing as the top title on every page in your site.

Firstly, yes, you understood the question correctly. To me, a page doesn't stand on its own in a website, but is part of the website, so, it's structure can be viewed as (just an example):

CODE

--MySite

--Page H1

--+Page H2

--+Page H2

---+Page H3

--+Page H2

This sort of anchors the page into a larger document set, namely, the rest of the website. Granted, it's just the way I (like to) see things; it could be "wrong" and hence my questions.

Two more points: Underneath the site logo/header, there is always a Home link as part of the site-wide navigation listing the main sections.

And as bwelford pointed out, a breadcrumb trail is also important, and that's found too because it eases in-section navigation.

[Mano70]

I always structure my sites like this:
<h1>Logo/header</h1> (reformatted with CSS and is a link home. Normally the text is a company name etc.)
<h2>Heading 1</h2>
<h3>Heading 2</h3>

Why do this? Accessibility (those who do this for SEO have the wrong approach IMO).

# Jackie benefits. As soon as Jackie hits your page, JAWS announces that the page has a certain number of links and a certain number of headers. Jackie can type INSERT+F6 to hear all the headers on your page, or CTRL+INSERT+ENTER to quickly navigate through your page by skipping to the next header.
# Michael benefits. In Opera, he can type S to skip to the next header, or W to skip to the previous one.

http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_27_us...al_headers.html

[rmccarley]

I also suggest that Breadcrumbs are doing exactly the same thing in a slightly different way.

I preffer to keep my sites flat and avoid breadcrumbs. Not always practical, but the best way to go when you can do it.

[Scratch]

Is that for SEO purposes, or design reasons, rmmcarley?

[Black_Knight]

rmccarley: I think I know exactly where you are coming from, but the important part was in just one sentance in my first reply:

the text inside those anchor tags is already effectively rather like a H1 tag for the resource the link is pointed at.

Have a think about that for a minute.

Then ask whether putting H2 tags around H1 tags would be a good thing
<h2><h1>The short description of what I'm linking to</h1></h2>

I'm suggesting that the anchor tags themselves already carry the effective weight (to the document linked to) of a H1, a singular short summary of what the document is about.

[rmccarley]

I understand. Is there any proof that it works this way? It's a great example/analogy and very clear, but how do we test it?

[Black_Knight]

Create 2 pages, on 2 different sites, that each target an unusual key word phrase combination.

On one of those pages, place a h1 tag that contains the targeted phrase, but the link to the page must not use any of the specific words in the targeted phrase. On the other page, have the H1 tag use different words, but have a link to the page use the exact targeted phrase. I'd probably wait 3-4 months to be sure the link weight had been fully calculated, then run the search for the phrase.

You'd have to be careful to keep it under wraps, to ensure that noone else linked to either document, and that your own behaviour in observation wasn't able to pollute the results for one page over the other, but apart from that it should work just fine for the purpose required.

[AbleReach]

I'm going to need to do some rethinking. :-)

I've always used headings as titles for annotated links. I'm not sure how this got started - maybe the convenience of having a visual size difference built in, as I organize the links into a heirarchical structure. Also, paragraphs with headings are more predictable cross-browser than lists.

Would you bold the title of an annotated link, instead of making it into a heading?

In the case of an annotated link you WANT the reader to know the link leads to something more meaty than the annotation.

Test time.
Oh, for more hours in the day. :-)


Elizabeth

[rmccarley]

Well Elizabeth, I wouldn't think there would be any penalty for using links in headlines. They just wouldn't get that extra *oomph* as it were.

But comparing a <a> to an <h2> may be like comparing apples to mailboxes. I just don't know...

*Maybe* I'll run the test. For now I'll code for what makes sense to the project - always the best way to go!