header tags vs large font sizes

as of lately I have been doing some research and found that websites using larger font sizes instead of the usual header tags (H1, H2 etc) rank higher than pages that do use the header tags. I tested this with changing from header tags to large font sizes. I waited 2 weeks before I made the change back and forth.

Could this be because the H* tags can easily be altered with css?
search engines do read css don't they?

 

I think I'd need to see it to believe it before I started changing all my H* to font sizes. I have great success with <h*>.. and it's so much easier to change the look of site globably by using css.

 

I can't see how this is true at all. It just doesn't make sense semantically. Header tags will always be weighed more than styled text/spans no matter how big the font is.

 

I'm only saying that these are my findings.
I was wondering if people noticed the opposite. When they changed from large fonts to headings.

I started thinking about it when I found websites ranking for search phrases (in a small niche) where they did not have backlinks with anchor texts matching those search queries.

They did however have size 16 fonts on their pages.

So I changed my h2 headings to large font sizes and jumped 12 spots (18 to 6)
I then waited 2 weeks and changed to h2 again and I jumped back to position 17. Again waited two weeks and changed again and jumped back to spot 7.

Could be coincidence that's why I posted this message to find out about other peoples findings.

Did you test this ThisGoatStarves? I would love to hear your findings.

 

The signifigance of an <h> tag is, presumably, that it signifies a heading. And a heading should carry more weight than plain text, regardless of font size.

Google could of course be discounting <h> tags because they can be abused. But i have not yet seen it.

Your testing sounds interesting though. I would love to hear if others have seen anything like this.

Could very well have been a coincidence too.