A page’s header is the portion of source code contained within the <head></head> section, appearing at the top of an HTML document.
Headers are important as they contain the files that are needed to load the initial rendering of a webpage, as well as the on-page directives & tracking tags/tag manager code.
The Importance Of HTML Headers & Search Engine Optimization
Having clean code in your pages’ headers is essential to kicking off a page’s loading sequence.
If a header contains errors, the rest of the page by default will load slower than it should.
On-page directives such as no-index or no-follow tags are found in page’s headers, as well as other responses that are essential for bots & browsers to properly access your page’s content.
Placing tracking tags & tag managers in the page’s headers or at the top of body content is also imperative, as it ensures that all visits, no matter how short are counted in analytics data.
This can lead to discoveries of page load speed issues, amongst other user experience errors that can drastically impact your site’s performance & user experience.