Element section

October 10, 2016 – 09:31 pm

Proper to use HTML 5 section element as content between header and footer?

If you are using headings (h1 to h6), you are already using something that could be called "implicit sections". The outlines of the following two markup examples semantically identical:

Example 1:

My cool site

…

My cool article

… …

Example 2:

… … …

So in this very case it wouldn't matter if you explicitly add section or not: the outline (the semantic structure) would be the same. Side note: it is recommended to always explicitly use the sectioning elements for sectioning content:

Authors are also encouraged to explicitly wrap sections in elements of sectioning content, instead of relying on the implicit sections generated by having multiple headings in one element of sectioning content.

(however, this applies only for sectioning content, not sectioning roots (like body))

Now, your question can't be answered generally, if we don't know which headings you are using. There are cases which would require you to use section (or article), otherwise you would get a wrong outline for your page. And there are cases where the use of an explicit section (or article) is optional.

Some general tips (applicable to "prototypical" websites only; there are of course many exceptions; these tips should only give you an idea)

each page of your site should have a site heading (e.g. "John's blog") and a content heading (e.g. "I found a funny video")

the site heading is the first heading in body, which is not included in a sectioning element (section, article, nav or aside)

the site heading "dominates" all scopes of your page, e.g. in most cases a) the navigation and b) the content

all scopes of your page should have a heading (you can visually hide them with CSS, though). If you can't or don't want to give a heading to a scope, you have to use a sectioning element (section, article, nav or aside), which would create an untitled/implicit heading