Is having a word with the H1 tag the same as having a 24 pt bold word in terms of SEO?

[Smelly Cat]

Search engines will not see it the same way.

It doesn't have to do with the size. Search engines don't care how big a font is. All of my h tags are the same size to look uniform to the user. They read the tag itself. So if you don't have an h1 tag, the search engines will see you don't have an heading.

You should really try to make it work. Have you tried an h2 or h3 tag?

edit:

@JR: you might want to listen to what Google's Matt Cutts says about the h1 tag and abusing it. It's algorithm does take it into account.

@Ryan - Read the Google starter guide and see what they say about headings. In general I follow the google guidelines and do well in all 3 search engines.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.c...guide.html

Second paragraph, the link is there.