This question was probably the most vague -- and there certainly wasn't a clear-cut right or wrong answer. But that's why I like it. I enjoy hearing what others think about the relationship of the title and h1 tags.
Notable Comments
Many agreed that ceejayoz's example was the best-case scenario, which was most like answer A:
<head>
<title>Widget Co, Inc. | List of Widgets</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="logo">
Widget Co, Inc.
</div>
<h1>List of Widgets</h1>
I think I'm with ceejayoz here, and it's certainly closest to what I've used in the past.
H1 is a heading and isn't a logo. A logo isn't a Title and also isn't a Heading. ... A logo or even just a company name is not just a line of text, it is part of a companies assets. Treating it like it is a Title or heading and putting it in a H1 tag is a mistake...
Good points on a logo not being a heading.
Why put the same exact thing in an H1 on every page, making search engines think it's the most important thing on the page, when it's mostly just eye candy?
Search engines weigh h1 heavier than h2. Putting only the company name in there might be a waste.
But in terms of your page's hierarchy, the <title> is like an <h0> that's applied to the <html> element. Why repeat its content in your <h1>?
I like the h0 metaphor.
How I would do it today:
<html>
<head>
<title>Page Title | Company Name or SiteName.com</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="logo">
<p>Company Name, replaced by Logo graphic using FIR (or related technique)</p>
</div>
<h1>Page Title</h1>
<h2>Subheading</h2>
<p>Content</p>
</body>
</html>
A nice, complete example -- and I agree with it all.
Summary (my take)
Here's what I think, after hearing from you highly esteemed readers:
- The
titletag should contain the page and site title. - The logo doesn't need to be a heading, and may live nicely in a div where it could be replaced with a
backgroundgraphic using CSS. h1should be the title that most completely describes the document as a whole. This may or may not include the site title (again).
In the past, I have sort of tried to adhere to that. But going forward, this seems to make sense in an ideal world.