More than one H1 on a page: good or bad?

On February 26, 2009, Google software engineer Matt Cutts collected questions on Google Moderator and answered many of them on video.

Erin from south of Boston asked:

More than one H1 on a page: good or bad?

• Category

  Science & Technology

[cgriego]

What about HTML5's outline algorithm which encourages exclusive use of H1? When will Google's indexing take sectioning elements into account? I want to use these now, but don't want to be penalized. I'm afraid that on one hand Google is trumpeting HTML5 in Chrome and Wave but on the search side I get penalized because it hasn't caught up.

[McSnookerman]

How complicated are the Google algorithms really? They sound pretty advanced sometimes, it feels like a human is looking at the source code.

[AleksGSquadron]

0:18 Larry Page passing by

[Frank Gainsford]

Google professes to use more than 250 variables in these SEA's (Search Engine Algorithms) and many of these are interdependent on each other.

The mathematics is quite astounding, as it uses many advanced techniques including but not limited to

*** Boolean algebra

*** trigonometry

*** calculus

These algorithms are broken down into many parts, and some of the answers are pre calculated. Some sections are re-iterated thousands of times until limits are reached or the value establishes enough

[netmosfera]

it would be nice to know how google reads html5 today. video says "don't use h1 only" but in html5 you could use only h1 with nested sections...

[Mitko Janeski]

Google just try to provide best Search results,

and not spammers result - i support google in any decision they make

[UWEandrew]

*Sniffle*

[Mario Fajt]

will answer like: "More h1 tags are ok if each of this tags are followed with h2,h3..and so on, sound much better?

[Axay Makadiya]

It is the general Reason of the Bloggers who are using blogspot as a platform cause the h1 is always Fixed,

[scopes321]

Do you need to use h1 tags for better SEO ranking or can you let it out?

[Jacob Kristensen]

Brugbart is using h1 exclusively with the new sectioning system of HTML, and there has been no harmful effects.