Does H1 or H2 Or H3 Matter?

Question

Does it matter if you use

or

or

? Like will one or the other get your site penalized or banned from search engines?

Answer 1

Does Hx matter? Yes it does but no one outside the search engines algorithm engineers knows just how much it matters.

It is safe to assume that the search engines have automated systems to determine a page's quality but what factors are used is unknown.

Based on experience an Hx hierarchy in headings and subheadings, ordered lists, quotations, citations, on-page anchor text, bold and italic will all contribute to a page's quality.

So the message is concentrate on providing an overall quality page for your users and don't force yourself to use Hx just because your heard it is good for the search engines.

Answer 2

It's one of those factors that are nice to have in a well optimized site, but not really that necessary. It is just a signal to the search engines as to what the page is all about and the most important keywords of that page.

My site has gotten very good search engine rankings, and getting #1 spot for many keywords without doing a single H1, H2 or H3.

Answer 3

Yes it does matter. This is one of the ways you show the SE's what you consider to be important on this page.

You can get results without using good programming but you will get better results following W3C guidelines.