Issue: The product title on product detail pages is rendering as an <h2> tag in the theme instead of an <h1> tag, which causes incorrect heading hierarchy and SEO issues (flagged by Bing/other crawlers).
Expected behavior: The product title should be the primary <h1> on the page since it’s the most important heading.
Current behavior: The product title is outputting as <h2>, meaning there is either no <h1> on the page or a less important element is taking the <h1> position.
Theme: Updated copy of Horizon (the active published theme)
This needs to be corrected, it’s a real problem and I have seen it come up in other teams also.
How long has Shopify none of the problem and why has it not been fixed?
In my fresh from the store copy of the theme product title on the product page is <h1>, as expected.
However, it’s easy to unintentionally change in theme settings – follow the following topic from this post down – Horizon theme h1 customization - #19 by tim_tairli
There is a bit of hostility there, but crucial knowledge too.
Unfortunately, with Horizon they’ve renamed some blocks in default theme configuration – say, they use the “Text” block and rename it to “Product title” making it difficult to understand the logic and recreate the default configuration if needed…
Also – share a link to your store for better diagnostics.
Thank you, Tim, I will take a look at this, much appreciated you taking the time 
Say Tim, since there is no h1 being produced by the theme because of its bad architecture. If you make a title in Description and then set it as h1 will the search engines, then pick that up as the h1 title tag?
Yep the customer support Tim Hampton closed my ticket without answering my questions. Very poor service on his part, I wonder if this is really the kind of support shopify puts out to its Customers, I wonder if this is what Corporate is like. Really poor handling of a problem and situation that they can easily fix but their staff is poorly trained for. A real downer on their part.
There shouldn’t be an issue, unless something was edited or changed to disrupt what is already default.
Here, on the default product page template, you can see the Title’s settings. I’ve highlighted the H1 tag. It’s an H1 by default, I have not changed anything.
I verified this on the actual web page, by right clicking the page, and selecting “Inspect” which brings up the dev tools.
Even if it’s accidentally changed to H2 in the theme editor, it’s really easy to change it back. Just click the dropdown and select Heading 1.
The only thing that could be an issue, is if you accidentally delete the block, or rename and move it. When you click “add block”, and choose Title, it doesn’t show you the same settings panel. But you can select “description” and do the same thing. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a text block and has that dropdown.
Thank you for the information it is all valuable. Yes, I understand how that works and others will also appreciate this information.
The fact that we are all told that the actual Title block is the item that is supposed to generate the h1 title is the real problem. The architecture does not work, it generates an outbound h2 when it should be a h1 and other themes have the same issue. You can hit F12 and put your courser on the title line and see this, now that’s a real problem. A lot of these themes have been out there a while now and should have been fixed so that they work properly. As someone that is a bit new and others that want to work with this platform they will be misinformed on how a lot of this works. I don’t think it would take much to fix these, but it is terrible customer support not to escalate the issue to have it done. Show a lack of interest in all of the customers concerns. So, customers support is saying go ahead and contact the FTC or the BBB or other compliance institutes that regulate things like this to resolve issues that could have been handled right now, and that will only make them look bad. Every issue should have been addressed within a timely manner. This kind of thing must come from management because I can’t see a business running like this or they don’t know and that’s why they close tickets out without a resolve to the issue at hand.
Again, I really thank you for your information. Everyone is trying work- rounds for issues in the themes, and I get that but that will not fix the actual problem of Shopify not fixing its architecture and giving customers the basics, what they are paying for. If it were outside the realm of the theme I would hire someone, but this is shopifys problem, this is their business this is what they are selling to their customers…
I asked Tom at customer support to escalate this issue, to find a fix, to have them work on it and he closed the ticket with no answers. And there is another person with the same issue different theme having the same issue, and I am sure many more who are saying the same thing. I find it disrespectful. By bringing the problem at hand to them they should be happy to fix it to make their product better or work the way they said it will…
Thanks Again
Just so you know – all themes from Horizon family share the same code – basically, it’s the same theme with different initial settings.
As Maximus and me have said, fresh theme from the store does output H1 by default. (And we both tried this ourselves).
So this is not a bug or an issue which requires fixing.
If your theme does something else it only means that somebody has changed this block from its default settings and set it to output H2.
Horizon family offers unprecedented flexibility and is a first to utilize the block-based architecture.
Unfortunately, flexibility makes it more prone to misconfiguration.
If not ready, there is a whole range of more rigid themes, like Dawn.
Hi Tim what would Fresh Theme be then? Date Wise? Because Tom acknowledged that it does not work. Now where not talking about the description block correct. The actual title block above that.
Thank guys
I kind of think you guys are talking about the description putting out a h1. I’m talking about the actual Title block is not doing that it’s putting out a h2. I can get a h1 on the description also but that’s not where the h1 is supposed to be automatically. Above that with the title block. I have not changed anything, and I have not added anything. It does not work, and this is not the only theme that does not work. Just want to make sure we are talking about the same thing. And yes, it needs to be fixed, I had someone double check. And Shopify Support two of them stated it does not work and that well I would need to pay someone to fix that so I would have a hard h1.
But I am all ears if you know of the fix for it? That is why I am here.
You will have to elaborate on what fresh theme is? Since there are two known people with the same issue, it is a development issue in the theme which is not a bug.
Anyways tell me about the Fresh Theme and when it was dated so I understand what you are saying. Thanks
Yes we’re all talking about the Product Title, not the description. Fresh theme just means freshly installed, new.
This is why screenshots and store links are so important. Because what you’re saying about Horizon is only possible if edited.
I think somewhere you have accidentally done something or are not editing the live theme. In the screenshots I shared you can see it. Both in the editor and in the html elements tab on the live product page.
We’re just trying to tell you that what you’re saying isn’t what the theme does by default. If you set it to h1 it will show as an h1 tag. Are there situations that you can have where you see it an h2? Sure, but only if something happened. You’re describing an exception, not the rule.
Some full-screen screenshots and a store link would be helpful. Cause without some kind of visual reference to what you’re talking about, there’s no way to agree with you.
Ok so fresh theme dated how far back. I just started in shopify not too long ago. I looked at updates but nothing for this. So, there is no way to set the Title tag in the Title, it is a given correct, because I see nothing.
So who is Tim and Max? Are you part of Shopify?
You have Product Title I am not see this, and then you have a drop down?
As far back as I can remember, even from my original version 3.5.1, not even sure how long ago that was, not too long. And I would probably say a lot longer than that, because this is a basic functionality.
But for your sake, I uninstalled, now I’ll install it again, I’ll take you step by step and show you. No, neither of us are part of Shopify.
Let me know if these 3 boxes don’t match what you see. Then you can tell me what you do actually see. I will show you again the product page inspector tool.
Let’s delete this block and see if we can add it back:
And this is where the theme can have some issues. This Title block is not the same block we just saw:
This is a very common mistake. Accidental deletion, re-add, then wtf. No such settings. This is obviously not the right block. This is what I suspect you see no? But this block doesn’t put any tag on the title at all, so how can there be an h2 tag on the title? Hard to tell without actually seeing your setup. Ok so let’s delete that and go with a text block.
Let’s change the text. Let’s connect a dynamic source like the product title.
Now let’s select an h4 tag.
Verified on live page.
Back to h1.
So you see, there is an issue in Horizon. That’s if you delete the Product title block, it’s not obvious what to do. This actually happens a lot. The Title block (in the add block window) is a bit misleading there, I’ll admit that.
So what is the default product title block really? It’s just a text block that has the Product Title connected as a dynamic source. Same as the Description block. So in any case, no matter what you’re doing, you can always just delete it and add a text block, and configure how you like.
Hope this helps.
Yes I get the jest of things I did look for the Title block and it is not there, I do see where you can add one which I believe is what you did with the h4 tag. So, you think I can add the title block to the elements area, and this will connect or be the actual title block that controls the h tag in the product title?
Tell you the truth I am Chemical Eng. and this is for my kids been working on this a while. So, I don’t know all the jargon, but I understand what you’re saying.
Thank you I will look at this tomorrow, much appreciated. I wish they had like You Tube where you can donate directly for a coffee or something.
No, you should use the “Text” block and add the product title as a dynamic source to the “Text” setting. And then ensure that this text is formatted as “Heading 1”.
Frankly, this was all has been written in a post I’ve shared a link to above.
Again, Horizon adds a lot of flexibility, but it can bite you.
Their dirty trick of renaming blocks does add unneeded complexity.
