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Sounds like someone was using the H tags for their formatting value instead of for semantic information, as they are intended. While there may not be "problems" with either browsers or search engines, it's still better to straighten that out and use CSS to format the text.
A topic from 2002 discussing this very issue...
H1 Tag: What W3C says about it
Quite nice to hear it from the authority
[webmasterworld.com...]
I've been testing WebmasterWorld and other resources that I visit frequently on my PDA. I have one of those Verizon Smart Phones. I should have waited and got an iPhone. :)
Anyway, many sites I visited were near impossible to navigate due to their incorrect use of html elements. I had to do a lot of scrolling up and down to find what I was looking for. Bad designer, bad, bad!
So, be very careful in how you structure your page from top to bottom. Having elements ordered incorrectly can have an adverse impact on your page meaning and rendering in certain devices.
Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0
W3C Recommendation 29 July 2008
[w3.org...]
^ This might even be a good topic by itself. ;)
<h5><?php $this->msg('views') ?></h5>
<h5><?php $this->msg('personaltools') ?></h5>
... I've no idea what they're for and they didn't even seem to appear on the page, even though they're in the rendered page source. Removing them doesn't seem to have broken anything either.
H1
-H2
--H3
--H3
-H2
-H2
-H3
--H4
etc.
If they really are H5, then they should have a relevant H4; which has a relevant H3 and a relevant H2 below the H1.
Provided that the H5 is justified, then put it into the correct position in the source, and then move it into the design location at the top by position:absolute.
You don't need to do a lot of modifications; content could be dynamically generated (for instance, portal-like products). Just put main site title inside H1, at the beginning of a page (if you believe it will make sense for SE)
(if you believe it will make sense for SE)
Ah, but it goes a bit deeper than just thinking of the SE. Let's set aside the intrinsic SEO value for a moment.
I've been doing a bit of research and testing using various devices to browse the web and have been for years. Just recently due to my dive into Social Media, I wanted to do further testing from a mobile environment. Those sessions have confirmed everything I've been following for years at the W3, WebmasterWorld and other fora/communities.
Page structure is "very important" in this new age era of SEO. It really is back to the basics in many instances. I look at it like starting off with a blank piece of 8.5 x 11.0 paper. That's me Table of Contents. If I follow what a page looks like in a mobile browser based on headings, lists, cascades, etc., much of the web is broken to the nth degree. Browsing sites with tag soup with no respect given to structure is a nightmare to say the least. If that is happening with my mobile browser, what happens with the bots? Aren't they at the same intelligence level? ;)
Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0
W3C Recommendation 29 July 2008
[WebmasterWorld.com...]
Unless a site is being built specifically to support mobile users, there's no need to go out of your way to support them. The same goes for those using screen-readers - unless you have a site that would have a high chance of being accessed by someone with a screen-reader, there's no need to go out of your way to support them. I'm not against assisting the disabled or anything - to the contrary - but time is money and wasting it on a demographic that isn't going to visit your site is foolish business sense.
As for bots, I believe that they are much smarter than that. While definitely not human, they've spent many many years developing and refining the various algorithms that go into finding and categorizing websites - and they did it/do it inspite of the fact that the vast majority of websites use layout tables - and even nested tables.
Finally - while I haven't been able to test it myself as I have no screen-reader, I've been looking through accessibility standards recently. It does not ban the use tables for layout - but requires simply that they degrade into an understandable format. This is a bit easier to accomplish with css as you tend to put down your content in a degraded form first before applying styles - so you know its safe. However, if you are using a simple table for layout - then there's no issue so long as you understand how the table degrades. It might not have the advantage of putting content first - but I never liked that setup anyways as it voids the html file of any structural meaning and puts all of the burden on your css file.
Structure should be separate from style and content!
Ryan
Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0
Thanks for your input, I didn't know that h1 has predefined role for some browser types. Not only that: Usability&Accessibility, there are visually impaired users too who uses specific devices... I don't think main topic is mobile-web related.
