Heading structure analyzer
Visualize a page’s H1-H6 outline as a tree. Catches skipped levels and missing or duplicate H1s.
Paste any URL above to see the page's heading hierarchy as an indented tree.
Why heading hierarchy matters
Headings do four things at once. They tell search engines what the page is about. They give screen readers a navigable outline. They help your readers skim the article and decide whether to keep reading. And they signal topic focus to AI crawlers building citation indexes.
Get the hierarchy wrong — multiple H1s, skipped levels, or no H1 at all — and all four functions degrade. Most sites get this right by accident. Some get it consistently wrong, usually because of how their CMS or theme generates page titles.
The three structural problems we flag
- No H1. Critical. Every page should have exactly one H1 — the page's primary topic. A page without an H1 is a page Google has to guess about.
- Multiple H1s. HTML5 allows it; SEO best practice doesn't. The most common cause is theme designers using H1 styling for visually-prominent text that isn't actually the page title. Use CSS to style — H1 is a structural choice, not a font-size choice.
- Skipped levels. An H2 followed directly by an H4 with no H3 between breaks the document outline. Screen readers announce the hierarchy confusingly; SEO tools sometimes ignore the deeper levels entirely. If you need a visual style for that section, use a CSS class — keep the heading levels in order.
Common patterns that look wrong but aren't
Modern frameworks sometimes inject hidden headings for navigation or aria-only purposes. If your audit shows two H1s but one is visually invisible, check whether it's an accessibility helper before treating it as a bug. Use the DOM inspector in DevTools to confirm what's actually rendered.
FAQ
Is multiple H1s actually bad for SEO?
Modern Google explicitly says it doesn't penalize multiple H1s, and HTML5 technically permits them. But: it confuses screen readers, dilutes topic focus signal, and breaks the document outline. The pragmatic answer is one H1 per page — even if the algorithm forgives multiple, no harm in following best practice.
What about JS-rendered headings?
We can't see them. The audit fetches static HTML and parses what's there. If your page renders headings via JavaScript after initial load, they'll be invisible to this tool. The full ItzSEO platform runs audits in a headless browser to catch JS-rendered content.
Should my logo wordmark be in an H1?
On the homepage, sometimes — if the wordmark IS the primary topic identifier (typical for brand-only sites). On article pages and product pages, the H1 should be the article title or product name. Don't use H1 for navigation chrome.
How many headings should an article have?
There's no rule, but a 1500-word article usually needs an H1 plus 4-8 H2s, with H3s only when an H2 section needs further sub-structure. Articles with one H1 and zero H2s are walls of text; articles with H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 nested 5 deep are usually over-organized.
Will my URL be saved?
No. We don't log inputs. Each scan is processed and discarded.
Can I scan a competitor's article?
Yes. The audit doesn't authenticate against the site — it fetches public HTML. Useful for studying how higher-ranking competitors structure their long-form content.
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