Can H1 and Meta title be exactly the same ?
-
I've heard from some SEO's that H1 and Meta Title shouldn't be exactly the same, why ?
Both of them describe what is ON the page right ? Why is it Spammy? Is it ?
-
Given the fine responses to the question, both vis a vis SEO and without considering SEO, do limits exist to the length of the H1 tag similar to the Title tag, which many say to should be between the max 65 and 70 characters to display in the SERPS?
Finding different ways to describe the same subject in a succinct way can be difficult and time-consuming, so I wonder how much time to spend on different H1 and Title text -- not to mention FB and other metadata for that page.
Tangentially, I have noticed that shorter Titles often have the site name appended, and I am not sure that is always a good thing -- especially when words can be duplicated. For example: "Why Live in London" can have the site name "- London Accommodations" auto-appended.
Thank you
-
I have tested for this, my initial test does not address user experience of course but that would be easy to test for - but if you're looking for what seems to work in google - my advise it to run your own test. If anyone is interested in follow up testing - please feel free to PM me.
-
Thank you all for your comments, now I get it, It's not that it's spammy or that it can get me into trouble, it's just that I could really use them both better if I try to optmize them both separately. Thanks, God I love Moz's Community ! Thank you !
-
The H1 and Title Tag can be the same but the issue that comes into play is whether or not the H1 tag provide a good user experience for the onsite content if it is the same as the Title Tag.
Take this post's Title Tag for example "Can H1 and Meta title be exactly the same ? Why not ? | Moz Q&A". If you put that as the full H1 it would not be as good as:
Can H1 and Meta title be exactly the same?
or
Can H1 and Meta title be exactly the same ? Why not ?
-
Exactly! You won't be penalized, but your competition will probably make better use of both elements as individual opportunities, and then you'll be outranked.
-
Agreed here on Monica's answer directly above....this is what should be done, eh!
-
I agree with Valeria completely. To elaborate, your title should read like a newspaper heading, and your H1 tag can be more descriptive and detailed. To make them exactly the same means that one of them will not be used to their full optimization potential. The two things should work together. I have always used by H1 tag to expand on my title tag, for example:
Title - Generac 6244 | 20kW Generator | 200a ATS Package
H1 - Generac 6244 Guardian Series 20kW Home Standby Generator with **200a Automatic Transfer Switch **
-
It's not necessarily spammy, but you're just not making the most of your h1 and not optimising your site properly if you do leave them the same. Ultimately, the two serve totally different functions when you remove the SEO element.
Your h1 is to let people know what your page is about when they're already on the site - often, the h1 and the link in your menu is the same which helps build continuity and ensure that people get to the content they're looking for (although there may be slight differences).
Your meta title lets people know what that page is about _before _they get to your site - it's important that you provide them with more information about who you are and why they should go to your page over the other results on there. For example, if you are a leather clothing boutique in London, your h1 may be Leather Trousers. But your searcher is looking for a physical location and wants to try before they buy.... your page appears on a load of search results where people are saying things like Leather Trousers | Ethical British Leather | London (or similar - and that example is too long but you get my drift) and your result simply says 'Leather Trousers' - who do you think gets the click?
Now, when you add the SEO element back in, by not optimising your meta title you're just squandering the opportunity to let search engines know more about your page and your business. Since good SEO consists of lots of building blocks rather than one big thing, those squandered opportunities quickly add up.
-
I don't think it's s a problem for you but there's more info here: http://moz.com/community/q/why-should-your-title-and-h1-tag-be-different
-
I do not believe that having the same text in h1 and title tag could cause any issues. For example we can see a lot of Wordpress websites rank where the title wasn't rewritten. There in most of the cases H1 and Title tag are exactly the same. (or differ only in a | Brand in the title)
That's a personal opinion.
Gr., Keszi
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
1st Ecommerce site got penalized, can we start a 2nd one?
Hello, A client's first site got penalized by Goolge Penguin. It has recovered through cleaning up backlinks, but not to where it was before. It is 2nd and 3rd for several money keywords, but is far less successful than before penalization. We are starting a second site. Here's the important steps to mention The new site shows up first for it's domain name, and it has 30 pages indexed. It shows up NOWHERE for our leading search term. Out other site has a blog post that is 3rd for that search term. We are using new categories and new organization. We are using a different cart solution We are adding all unique content The home pages and some of the product pages are very thorough. We are adding comprehensive products like nothing else in the industry (10X) We plan on adding a very comprehensive blog, but haven't started yet. We've added the top 100 products so far. Our other store has 500. There's a lot of spam in the industry, so sites are slow to rank. Our category descriptions are 500 words Again, all unique content. No major errors in Moz Campaign tools Just a few categories so far, we're going to add many more. Same Google Analytics account as our other site It looks like we should eventually be on page 3 for our major search term. Again, we're nowhere for anything right now. ... Have you seen that Google will not rank a second site because it's from the same company and Google Analytics account, or does Google let you rank 2 sites in the same industry? We are hoping it's just slow to rank. If you can rank 2 sites, what are your best recommendations to help show up? Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Spam signals from old company site are hurting new company site, but we can't undo the redirect.
My client was forced to change its domain name last year (long story). We were largely able to regain our organic rankings via 301-redirects. Recently, the rankings for the new domain have begun to plummet. Nothing specific took place that could have caused any ranking declines on the new site. However, when we analyze links to the OLD site, we are seeing a lot of link spam being built to that old domain over recent weeks and months. We have no idea where these are coming from but they appear to be negatively impacting our new site. We cannot dismantle the redirects as the old site has hundreds, if not thousands, of quality links pointing to it, and many customers are accustomed to going to that home page. So those redirects need to stay in place. We have already disavowed all the spam we have found on the old Search Console. We are continuing to do so as we find new spam links. But what are we supposed to do about this spam negatively impacting our new site? FYI we have not received any messages in the search console.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | FPD_NYC1 -
Online Store in trouble - What can I check?
Hello, One of our online stores has half the traffic that it did a month ago. What can I check and what can I do to troubleshoot? I can't list the domain here, but what would you suggest? Could RankBrain be the problem? So far I've Checked the functionality of the site including the checkout functionality Checked rankings for main terms, they seem to be holding Checked competitors, there's some sales but I don't see that cutting us off this much. Added content continuously for the past 2 months - quality, targeted, helpful Updated the home page text to be more helpful recently Checked for structural changes that would effect backlinks - found none. Analyzed Google Analytics, still looking deeper. What would you suggest as further troubleshooting?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Keyword Duplication in the title
Hello, I read on this great SEO Blueprint Article here that you don't want to duplicate any words in the title tag, even one duplicate. But what if your branding and keywords both have the same word in it. For example, making the title here like this: NLP Training and Certification Center | NLP and Coaching Institute which is 66 characters by the way. Your thoughts on the duplicate word "NLP"?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
How can do I report a multiple set of duplicated websites design to manipulate SERPs?
Ok, so within one of my client's sectors it has become clear that someone is trying to manipulate the SERPs by registering tons of domains that are all keyword targeted. All of the websites are simply duplications of one another and are merely setup to dominate the SERP listings - which, at the moment, it is beginning to do. None of the sites have any real authority (in some cases 1 PA and DA) and yet they're ranking above much more established websites. The only back links they have are from dodgy-looking forum ones. It's all a bit crazy and it shouldn't be happening. Anyway, all of the domains have been registered by the same person and within a two-month time period of each other. What do you guys think is the best step to take to report these particular websites to Google?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Webrevolve0 -
Beating the file sharing sites in SERPs - Can it be done and how?
Hi all, A new client of mine is an online music retailer (CD, vinyls, DVD etc) who is struggling against file sharing sites that are taking precedence over the client's results for searches like "tropic of cancer end of things cd" If a site a legal retailer trying to make an honest living who's then having to go up against the death knell of the music industry - torrents etc. If you think about it, with all the penalties Google is fond of dealing out, we shouldn't even be getting a whiff of file sharing sites in SERPs, right? How is it that file sharing sites are still dominating? Is it simply because of the enormous amounts of traffic they receive? Does traffic determine ranking? How can you go up against torrents and download sites in this case. You can work on the onsite stuff, get bloggers to mention the client's pages for particular album reviews, artist profiles etc, but what else could you suggest I do? Thanks,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Martin_S0 -
Can I get harmed by an inlink?
Hi! I'll jump right in to my question. There's a webpage with the following stats:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mozalbin
PA 80, mR 4.70, mT 5.00. Pagerank ZERO. Now, these are some beautiful stats for every webpage, except for the pagerank. The reason to why the pagerank is so low is that the inlinks to this site is partial spammy (hidden links and other bad naughty black-hat stuff that I hate). (It's not my webpage, I don't even know whos webpage this is..) I happen to have a backlink from this page. A clean dofollow, in-content link to my site. The total amount of external links on this page is five and there's no spam on the page or hidden anywhere else. My question #1:
Is this particular inlink to my site harmful? Will I get penaltized for getting a backlink from this site? I mean, Google have figured out the spam factor of the links to the page that is linking to me. But I'm innocent, the link to me is just lying there... (Why or why not?) My question #2:
IF (and only IF) the link to my webpage is harmful. Are links from my page harmful? (Why or why not?) Thank you very much for using you awesome knowledge to answer this 🙂0 -
What can i do with it? Black hat in my competitors.
Hi, Here we go, i have a site that is is in first page but in last positon, and i got a competitor that is in first place but his is just duplicate content for every page. He just chage the keyword but still the same content. Really, what can i do, do the same thing, i dont want black hat my site. Do i have to keepping doing my on-page and link building and do not care about him?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ex20