FWIW, Google explicitly says it mostly ignores semantic HTML [0]:
> Having your headings in semantic order is fantastic for screen readers, but from Google Search perspective, it doesn't matter if you're using them out of order. The web in general is not valid HTML, so Google Search can rarely depend on semantic meanings hidden in the HTML specification.
And a typical business web page likely won't have many "automated processes" it wants to accommodate except for search engine crawlers.
Well, I'm inclined to interpret "Google Search can rarely depend on semantic meanings hidden in the HTML specification" as meaning exactly what it says. After all, Google's own pages are made of <div>-soup, so I'd hardly imagine that they discriminate against it in others' pages.
Unless you have explicit statements or hard evidence to the contrary?
> Having your headings in semantic order is fantastic for screen readers, but from Google Search perspective, it doesn't matter if you're using them out of order. The web in general is not valid HTML, so Google Search can rarely depend on semantic meanings hidden in the HTML specification.
And a typical business web page likely won't have many "automated processes" it wants to accommodate except for search engine crawlers.
[0] https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-s...