H1 tags longer than 70 characters lose their impact. A heading is meant to be a concise label for the page content - not a full sentence or paragraph. Overly long H1 tags dilute keyword focus, look awkward on the page, and may be truncated or ignored by search engines in favor of shorter alternatives.

This guide shows you how to find every page with a long H1 tag using the crawler.sh CLI.

Step 1: Install crawler.sh CLI

Install the CLI with a single command:

curl -fsSL https://install.crawler.sh | sh

This downloads the correct binary for your operating system and architecture, places it in ~/.crawler/bin/, and adds it to your PATH. Restart your terminal or run source ~/.bashrc (or ~/.zshrc) to pick up the new PATH entry.

Verify the installation:

crawler --version

Step 2: Crawl the target website

Run a full crawl of the website you want to audit:

crawler crawl https://example.com

The crawler extracts H1 tag content from every page. Results are saved as an NDJSON file (.crawl) in the current directory. For larger sites:

crawler crawl https://example.com --max-pages 5000

Step 3: Run SEO audit

Run the SEO analysis on your crawl data:

crawler seo example-com.crawl

The long H1 check flags every page where the H1 text exceeds 70 characters.

Step 4: Identify long H1 tags

Look for the Long H1 section in the SEO report. Common patterns that produce long H1 tags:

Using the full article title (including subtitles) as the H1
Including brand names, categories, or breadcrumb paths in the H1
Keyword stuffing with multiple variations in the heading
Auto-generated headings from CMS fields that concatenate multiple values
H1 tags that duplicate the full meta title

Step 5: Fix and re-crawl

Tighten each long H1 to 70 characters or fewer:

Focus on the primary keyword and remove secondary terms
Move supplementary information to an H2 subtitle or paragraph below
Remove brand names from the H1 - they belong in the title tag
Use clear, direct language - cut filler words and unnecessary qualifiers

After fixing, re-crawl to verify:

crawler crawl https://example.com
crawler seo example-com.crawl

Why long H1 tags matter for SEO

A concise H1 sends a stronger topic signal than a long, diluted one. Search engines weigh the words in an H1 heavily, so packing too many keywords or filler words reduces the impact of your target terms. Short, focused headings also improve readability - users scanning a page can quickly grasp its topic from a concise H1. Tightening long headings improves both search performance and user experience.