RE: Heading tags for accessibility and impact on SEO

This sounds like a bizarre request unless the SEO team are concerned about being penalised for having too many headings, which search engines could interpret as a black hat activity.

Instead of using <h3> elements, you could use <div role="heading" aria-level="3">. For user agents that use the browser's accessibility tree (which includes all the major assistive technologies), this looks exactly the same as an <h3> heading.

I can't think of any reason that search engines would look at the accessibility tree. They will almost certainly just look at the initial source code and/or the DOM, in which case they would just see it as a <div>.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


From: Monica Olsson <molsson@sbctc.edu>
Sent: 22 September 2022 19:05
To: David Woolley <forums@david-woolley.me.uk>; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Heading tags for accessibility and impact on SEO

Interesting problem. I am having a hard time understanding why correct semantic markup and use of headings would have a negative impact on SEO. Kiran, can your team provide you with more context and information about what they were seeing with SEO results and headings that led them to remove the markup?




[Title: SBCTC logo - Description: Compass]Monica M. Olsson (she/her/hers)

Policy Associate - Accessible IT Coordinator

Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges

molsson@sbctc.edu<mailto:molsson@sbctc.edu> * o: 360-704-3922 * c: 206-914-7187

sbctc.edu<https://www.sbctc.edu/> * Twitter: @SBCTCWashington<https://twitter.com/SBCTCWashington> * Facebook: @WASBCTC<https://www.facebook.com/wasbctc/>

________________________________
From: David Woolley <forums@david-woolley.me.uk<mailto:forums@david-woolley.me.uk>>
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2022 10:45 AM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>>
Subject: Re: Heading tags for accessibility and impact on SEO

On 22/09/2022 18:35, Kiran wrote:
>   the other team replied that it is removed intentionally for SEO reasons.

I think we'd really need to know what those reasons were.  I would have
hoped that correct semantic markup would help with search engines
(unless they are trying to mislead the search engine).