Using Noindex Header Tag Will Not Prevent Google From Viewing a Page
Including a ‘noindex X-Robots-Tag’ HTTP header directive on a sitemap file will not affect how Google is able to process the file. You can also include this directive on other documents such as CSS files, as it will not affect how Google views them, instead it will just prevent them from showing up in a web search.
Heading Tags Are Not a Critical Ranking Factor
Headings are used to help Google better understand the context of pages and are not something John sees as a critical ranking factor, particularly for the homepage as this will usually rank for the brand name anyway.
Multiple H1s Shouldn’t be a Big Issue if You Are Using HTML5 Specification
As multiple H1 tags is a normal element found in HTML5, Google will try to take this into consideration and John doesn’t think it would be a huge problem. It’s more important for Google to be able to identify which parts of a page are primary content and which parts are more secondary.
Website Owners Don’t Need to Specify What Google Should & Shouldn’t Render
Website owners don’t need to implement anything on their sites that would tell Google what is unnecessary to render, as it should be Google’s job to figure this out. Being selective and not rendering particular elements can also cause problems for a website.
Use X-Robots-Tag HTTP Header to Noindex Indexed Sitemap Files
If sitemap files are indexed for normal search queries, then you can use the X-Robots-Tag HTTP header to noindex all pages ending in .xml or .gz.
JavaScript Snippets Can Close Head & Cause Elements Below to be Overlooked
Be careful when adding JavaScript snippets to the head of a page, as this might cause the head to close prematurely and cause elements like hreflang links not to be processed, as they are seen as part of the body.
Google Only Accepts Rel Alternate Links in Head Section
Google doesn’t accept rel alternate links returned in the response header, they are only accepted in the head section of a page.
Google Uses Semantic Markup to Understand Importance of Highlighted Text
Google can use semantic markup such as bold, italics and headings to understand that highlighted words are especially important.
Meta Tags Can be Combined in One Tag
Meta tags can be combined rather than having to have each one on its own separate line e.g. content=notranslate nositelinkssearchbox.