[Suggestion] Implementing H1 Headings without coding

[V12CatMan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping_(blogging) *ping" It's merely letting other services know when something has been updated on your site.

Pinging is always free. "Blogging" is a generic term -- ALL frequently updated sites use them. From little ol' me to CNN.

I have no freaking idea how to get a high on Google (if I could do that -- I would be charging you by the hour right now ). I was only able to rank high because your page isn't very well written and all other pages (the other one...) was even worse.

Pings are "all" free. Go here and ping away (it's the strandard WordPress app) to your hearts content: http://pingomatic.com/ (Use at your own risk). If the services don't actually find anything new -- that could be considered spam, and it could hurt you a lot.

Risto

As always you seem to be lecturing without reading the question. I have no interest in your judgmental comments on websites I am linked to. To this point I have resisted making any comments about your psycho-babbling all knowing - Poor Man's Dr. Phil site. (Have a little )

I asked Remi a question and you arrogantly answered it. I don't want a link to WIKI or a site that is used by Bloggers to ping Google. I wanted information on how to use Ping services when the web site is a real business and not a blogging site (irrespective of CMS Wordpress etc. or any other tools used to manage the site updates.).

Ping-O-Matic says clearly:

"Ping-O-Matic is a service to update different search engines that your blog has updated."

"I have no freaking idea how to get a high on Google" - FINALLY - you say it and and after deceptively making numerous posts inferring how easy it is.

This is my last post on this issue. I hope readers can sift through the thread and glean the valuable/sincere posts from the self serving, self indulgent ones. Risto - I took a poke at you because I think you deserve it. Let's move on!

The original thread was about the potential value/drawbacks of using h1 tags in a wysiwyg development environment and whether Xara should consider implementing style management in some form. We should all return to that topic.

[remi]

I've decided to reopen this thread, because the topic is important. But please keep on topic and avoid any further personal aggressions.

Remi

[juergen]

Remi,

thanks for reopening. I spent quite a while reading this back and forth.

What I did not understand after reading is what this thread is about as lots of people talk about different things:

1. The semantic meaning of tags.
2. how a major search engine ranks content available on the internet.
3. how to be visible in as many as blogs as possible (reminds me on the number of friends in social networks)
As all the others I would like to add my 2c. Whatever html or css are, or whoever created tags or css attributes for whatever reasons, tags like <h1> have a specific meaning. If they have a SEO value or not, tags like H1 tag describe specific content at a specific level.
Describing content just with attributes as bold, italic or whatever else is purely cosmetic. The tag itself is a description...
I am pretty sure that here at talkgraphics, people look at websites/pages from a different angle than on a portal with focus on html or a portal with focus on SEO.
As I create websites/pages with the appropriate tools (not trying to start a discussion on this) I am a bit puzzled that a discussion like this comes up in a mostly graphical oriented forum. Websites contain graphics, but they are just a part of the whole story.

Juergen

[covoxer]

This thread is about priority of implementing <h1> and other semantic elements in the WD.
Currently, the priority is very low so it's not likely to get it's way into next few versions.
If someone will provide objective arguments about it's importance, the priority may increase.
No one can ever be sure that he had foreseen everything. That's why we leave this question open. Perhaps some facts can change our position on this.
Thanks everyone for contributing.

[pauland]

Currently, the priority is very low so it's not likely to get it's way into next few versions.
If someone will provide objective arguments about it's importance, the priority may increase.

Hi John,

I have a slightly alternative view about it's priority. I can't (nor can perhaps anyone) give you a definitive proof as to why H1 is important, but here are some points to consider when prioritising it.

* A LOT of XWD users consider it an important issue to be addressed. Whether (technically) they are right or wrong to feel that way is not so important. What is important is that a significant number of XWD users want to see heading/style support of some kind and for a software product that should factor highly in prioritization.

* If the matter were addressed, you would have a lot more time to do other things rather than explain why users are wrong to want the feature.

This is intended to be a positive, pragmatic contribution to the debate, to move things from the "proof of need" impasse.

Paul

[covoxer]

* A LOT of XWD users consider it an important issue to be addressed.

Not quite true. First of all, only users that know something about html want it, right? Second, most of the users with experience of using traditional authoring tools ask a LOT of other stuff too. So following your alternative view we should first of all implement a Dreamweaver just to stop people asking questions, and then continue with our product.
As you understand we have a different point of view as was explained here.

* If the matter were addressed, you would have a lot more time to do other things rather than explain why users are wrong to want the feature.

This is silly comment, isn't it? But I may learn from it and stop explaining...

[Drwyd]

Since the initial "discussion" about H1 tags I have been trawling the net for up to date info on the subject and the consensus appears to be that they are no longer weighted as much as they used to be (by Google) They are still a factor but their value for optimisation is very much reduced.

A couple of sources :-
http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-En...king-Factor/3/

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

Drwyd

[Soquili]

I don't know how authoritative Search Engine Land may be. Here is an article about the Top 10 SEO myths.

Notice #7 is about H tags.

http://searchengineland.com/top-ten-...eo-myths-12052

[Drwyd]

I'm surprised how much of that still holds true after all those months (a year+ is a long time in both politics and SEO)

That Jill Whalen crops up quite often on my frequent rummaging excursions on the net. Here is a later version of her ten tips.

http://www.highrankings.com/tentips

#8 is the (big) one that I see people missing far too often.

Drwyd

[pauland]

Just some thoughts on H1 tags.

Recently I've seen people wanting work done on websites and specifying explicitly that they require SEO features and good use of H1 tags. I recently watched a presentation on SEO good practice and again H1 tags were explicitly mentioned as essential good practice.

I'm not trying to ressurect the argument about whether H1 tags are important for SEO or not, what I do want to say is this:

Clients (not just Xtreme users) are specifiying that H1 tags are to be used in any website created for them and clients are being advised that this is good practice. Clients aren't interested in debating whether H1 tags really matter or not, nor do they care if your favourite software doesn't support this industry standard. My point is that whether H1 tags matter or not, XWD and Xtreme practitioners are not able to engage with such clients because of this limitation and as such Xtreme is unnecessarily limiting the work that it can be used for.

As far as I can see, the minimal entry point for H1 support would be using CSS styles to control the effects of layout using H1 tags so that XWD could still do it's layout magic and some property for text to specify that a particular tag should be used. It's really not impossible to address this.

So my point is that whether H1 really matters for SEO purposes or not (lets not restart that) there is a business case for people wanting such a facility if only to satisfy the clients that demand it. In turn Xara should consider this not only as an absolute SEO issue but as a reasonable request from the user community regardless of whether xara thinks it's important to SEO or not.

The important thing is that it matters to the XWD community.