(2012-08-09, 07:04 PM)brad-t Wrote: [ -> ]I don't have a problem with H1 or even H2, but beyond that it gets murky with regards to how they should be used.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/the-h1-h2-h3-...6-elements
Basically as long as you're consistent it's correct
. It's not meant to be a set thing because pages can be so different (as discussed in this thread). I mean you could have huge thesis paper as a web page where you would need all 6 levels of heading but a forum you probably wouldn't.
(2012-08-09, 07:13 PM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]http://forums.devshed.com/search-engine-...05680.html
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-c...ctly/7723/
http://www.stephanspencer.com/blog-seo-t...ding-tags/
Ok. What's your point? I read everything you listed but I don't understand how that helps prove your point. If anything some of it helps me. The rest is pure "SEO expert" garbage. It's also worth noting that these articles are from 2008 and 2006 respectively. And I wouldn't trust any SEO advice other than from Google itself. Specifically their SEO Starter Guide, a great read.
Since we're linking sources, here is some relevant information:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM (from 2009, but still accurate)
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.p...ntics.html
(2012-08-09, 07:13 PM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]So those two tags exists just because the sake of it? 
No, there is a point for each tag. Even if you can style a strong tag to look exactly to he H1 tag, there will be a difference. A strong tag is suppose to highly a important phrase/word in the post, a Hn is suppose to highly those posts titles.
That is obviously not what I meant. I was trying to say that you can declare 10, 15 or 20 <strong> tags in a page because there can be more than one word that you would like to highlight. Similarly you can declare 10, 15 or 20 <h1> tags because there can be more than one heading of that same importance.
(2012-08-09, 07:13 PM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]And how will one H1 distract you from the other 20 H2 titles?
Irrelevant. Whether an h1 distracts you from 20 other headings or not isn't a valid point. Markup should be described with semantics and hierarchy in mind, not if it's distracting. As you have said, search engines only read your code. They don't interpret your CSS and determine whether your website is distracting or not. Therefore the fact that a single h1 doesn't distract people isn't a reason to mark the forum's name on forumdisplay as such.
(2012-08-09, 07:13 PM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]In a newspaper, the sports section title is the most important thing once you are in that section, not when reading the front page where there are other sections heading as well 
Then I believe we read newspapers in a very different way. As a standalone document it makes sense to do so. But from a UX point of view nobody cares about the sports section title once they are in it. They want headlines. They want to know who Ronaldo's girlfriend is or which teams are disputing the championship.
(2012-08-09, 07:13 PM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]In a show thread page, the thread subject should use the the H1 tag. Replies should use the H2. In the forum display page, tough the thread titles are very important, they are not the most important thing for that page, you should use H2 tags in them (establishing they are the sub-content of the H1 just as they are to the forum).
Fofum (Container) -> Threads (Content)
H1 (Container) -> H2 (Content)
The thread subject on showthread should use an h1 tag - agreed. But what do you mean replies should use an h2? I hope you are talking about the reply subject that's at the top of every post preceded by "RE:" (which by the way should be removed). Wrapping the entire post within an h2 is crazy. Posts have multiple lines and multiple paragraphs. An h2 is a heading. Or am I missing something here?
As for the rest of your suggestion, I have already said that this is arguable. I certainly do not agree with it, but I can't blame those that follow it. Realistically it won't make much of a difference, nor will you get penalized for it. At the end of the day it's just semantics. But I like to dig a little deeper and try to understand what the best options are. And I believe what I have suggested is correct.
I have been using this tool to try and test out various approaches as outlined in this thread Just to see if the tags I have chosen make "sense" and look right as a document.
http://www.seo-browser.com/index.php
That's always a good idea. In fact I believe a website should be as functional as possible before you even start working on the CSS or JavaScript.