Missing H2 Example
My second chapter fell into the Nile and was eaten by a crocodile, who has since grown much better read.
The short answer
- What it is
- A missing H2 means a page has no H2 elements at all. The content has no marked sections below the main heading.
- Why it matters
- Subheadings make a page easy to scan and show how the topic is divided. Without them, readers and machines get one long block with no signposts.
- How a crawler should report it
- Report a missing H2 when the on-page H2 count is 0, and show the count. A page with a single H2 far down the page still passes this check.
- Live examples
/lab/missing-h2/(positive)/lab/missing-h2/near-miss/(near miss)
Long pages that run on with no section headings
A missing H2 is common on pages built from plain paragraphs. A writer pastes text into a CMS and uses bold lines for section names. A page builder sets those lines to H3 or to a styled block. Landing pages may jump from the H1 to images and buttons. Short pages, such as a contact page, may simply have no need for sections, so not every result is a real problem.
A browser gives no warning, and a sighted reader can still follow bold text. People who use screen readers feel the difference. They often jump from heading to heading, and a page with none gives them nothing to jump to. Search engines can still read the text, but headings help them see the parts of a page. Clear sections can also help a search engine match one part of a long page to a query.
To detect it, count the <h2> elements on the page after it renders. A count of 0 raises the issue. Review the results with word count in mind. A 1,500-word article with no H2 is a stronger case than a 100-word contact page. Also look for lines that are fully bold and on their own, since those are headings in disguise. They make the easiest fixes.
To fix it, split the page into sections and give each one a heading that says what the section covers. Plain, specific words work better than clever ones. Turn the existing bold lines into real <h2> elements, and style them with CSS. Do not skip levels on the way down. Train editors to use the heading menu in the CMS rather than the bold button. After that, check a sample of pages by hand.