h tags question on placement

on my forumhome page i have my headings ( like 'general' )

then i have the sub headings after that eg:

• Introduce Yourself
• Recipebite Cafe
• Food News

etc

what i was thinking of doing is making the headings <h1> and the sub headings <h2>

the thing is that i have 10 headings and lots of sub headings... is there a limit or a recommended amount of times you can repeat the h tags ? because obviously i will add more subjects as my forum grows making my index have ... well lets just say quite a few h tags

i am only thinking of doing it like that because there is no real single 'definitive' place i can think of to put a h1 tag

what do you think of this idea ?

thank you

I think it sounds like a good idea, particularly because the forum categories are really appropriate for headings, since it is effectively a "table of contents" (if you use a book metaphor).

I believe it's most important that you apply the tags to actual titles, and that the hierarchy is maintained. I do not think the # of tags should be bad, as long as these previous two conditions are met. I think that the method you have described should be fine.

However, if you do implement it, I would be interested in hearing if it produces any measurable impact either positive or negative.

ok.. thank you, i will give it a go and let you know in a few months how it went

The global structure of an HTML document

I would avoid overloading the forumhome with heading tags, simply because no content follows it.

Headings are 'logical outline element headings'.

You wouldn't hand in an outline that looked like

• Section 1
  
  • section1 a
  • section1 b

you'd want an outline that looked like

• Section 1
  
  • section1 a
    
    • support 1
    • background 2
    • quote 3
    • why 4
    • call to action 5

When you're missing the logical elements that Support the headings, it's illogical to use as an outline.

• Forum name h1
  
  • Forum cat h2
    
    • sub cat h3
      
      • post title h4
        
        • post text p

That's the logical progression you want to use. Sometimes, skipping h1 of forum name and placing forum cat right as the h1.

On threads, it's slightly different. The logical outline is not that of the forum cat heirarchy, but that of the thread.

• Thread title h1
  
  • post text p

Lame, yes.... but unless you've made some custom bbcode for h2-h6, you're not going to get the logical sections via the post itself.

so on my homepage Recipes and Food & Cooking Forums

where would you suggest that i can use the h1 tag ?... then the h2 etc to follow ?

obviously i want be able to do this properly, also the other pages, i was going to add the h1 tag to the breadbrumb menu like this

Recipebite > Cooking Tips > Professional Chef
Gadgets, Gizmo's and Essentials

'Gadgets, Gizmo's and Essentials' in this case would be the h1, but i would be unsure on where to go from there

I don't quite understand. Is it or is it not a good idea ...
- to put some h1 on forum cat
- to put some h1 on forum cat and h2 on sub cat

Has anyone tried it? Results?