There is no fixed number that tips a page into fragmentation, because the ceiling is set by reader coherence rather than a count. A page feels broken up when its sections grow too thin to stand on their own or when the chopping costs the piece its single throughline. So the real test is not how many H2s you have, it is whether each one owns a substantial idea worth setting apart. A long page with eight meaty sections can read cleanly, while a short one carved into six stubs feels scattered.
The first half of that pivot is substance per section. Every H2 makes a promise that what follows is a distinct, developed idea. When a section under a heading runs only a sentence or two, the heading is writing a check the content cannot cash, and the reader feels the page stuttering from label to label without ever settling into anything. Several thin sections in a row are what create the fragmented sensation, not the heading count itself.
The second half is the throughline. A page should still read as one argument or one guided path even with many breaks in it. When headings start to feel like a list of loosely related topics rather than stages of a single explanation, the structure has fragmented the meaning even if each section is decently sized. Coherence is about whether the sections add up, not just whether they are individually full.
This reframes the editing question entirely. Instead of asking “is six too many,” ask whether section three has enough to say to deserve its own heading, and whether the order of sections still tells one story. If two adjacent H2s cover slices of the same idea, the fix is usually to merge them under one heading, not to keep both because the page looked nicely divided.
When you next review a page, go heading by heading and check that each H2 introduces a genuinely separate idea with enough body to justify the break, and that the sections read as one connected piece. Merge or cut any heading that fails that check, and the count will take care of itself.