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H1

Wygard watches the text of the first <h1> on every monitored URL and alerts you when it changes or disappears.

Scope Tier Default Alert
Per URL Basic Enabled on every URL where an H1 is found 🔴 Danger

Why it matters

The <h1> is one of the strongest on-page signals about what a URL is about. A regression — a CMS template that drops the H1, a redesign that swaps it for a styled <div>, or a translation that quietly overwrites it — weakens the page's topical relevance for the queries it was built to rank for. The page still renders, the site still looks fine, and the impact only shows up weeks later in lost positions.

The default severity is Danger because H1 regressions are common after redesigns and theme updates, and the SEO cost is real but invisible from the front-end.

What Wygard checks

On every run, the crawler:

  1. Fetches the monitored URL.
  2. Extracts the text content of the first <h1> from the page source.
  3. Compares the found value against the stored desired value.
<h1>Top-notch on-page SEO monitoring</h1>

The first crawl's H1 becomes the baseline. Every later run is compared against that baseline until you change the desired value or confirm a new one.

Common alerts

  • H1 text changed — the tag is still there, but its content no longer matches the baseline.
  • H1 not found — no <h1> was extracted from the page.
  • More than one H1 — multiple <h1> tags were detected. Search engines tolerate this, but it dilutes the signal and usually indicates a template bug.

Match method

The default match method is is exactly. If your page renders without an H1 by design (rare), you can switch the test to does not exist so it stays green as long as no H1 appears.

Responding to an alert

  1. Open the alert and review the diff — Wygard shows the previous H1 and the new one.
  2. Decide whether the change was intended (e.g. a copy refresh) or accidental (e.g. a template regression).
  3. If it was intended, click Set found value as desired on the alert card to adopt the new H1 as the baseline.
  4. If it was accidental, fix the template or content on your site. The next crawl will turn the test green automatically.

Pair it with H2+

The H1 test only covers the single top-level heading. If you also want to watch a specific section title — a category label, a price block, a recurring CTA — enable the H2+ test on the same URL and pick the heading level that carries it.