Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Exact match Title and H1 tags, and over optimization
-
Hi Mozzers - was just wondering whether matching H1 and Title tags are still OK, or whether there's an over optimization risk if they exact match?
-
I think that Google knows what (keywords) your articles are about - so there is less need to stuff them into a title tag.
However, matching the keyword to what the searcher has in mind and will see bolded in the SERPs is still important.
"providing variety within the SERP when compared to other results"
Exactly. You need to stand out. Show that your content or product has special value, inspire the searcher to click on your page. I believe that title tags can move rankings if you can get the visitor to click and hold them after they land.
-
Thanks for responding so quickly. Upon further thought, I think what I'm seeing is less about Title and H1 matching, and more about providing variety within the SERP when compared to other results. I'm trying some things on a low risk site so we'll see what happens.
-
I still think that there is no problem with having title tags that match your H1 tags.
Ten years ago, I wrote title tags that focused on keywords. Now I am writing title tags that focus more on presenting something interesting from the article that might elicit clicks. A lot of the old title tags remain on the site but I revisit them every time I update or rewrite a page.
-
Almost 4 years later, I'm curious what your current thoughts on this are EGOL? I too have seen great results with exact match title tags, but I've started to notice more recently that it doesn't work like it used to. Especially in cases where many other results in the SERPs also show results with exact match (or very close to exact) title tags. My untested suspicion is that Google doesn't want a SERP chalk full of results that all look the same (neither would users for that matter), so a better SERP would show more variety.
Anyway, the world of SEO is ever-changing and I was curious to see how your answer from 2013 stacks up in 2017.
-
Thanks for feedback EGOL and Oleg - can't see there's a problem myself, though I haven't carried out any testing - I remember Rand debated this very issue a few years back.
-
there's an over optimization risk if they exact match?
Who is saying this stuff?
I have this on LOTS of pages. LOTS. Have been doing this since the 1990s.
My pages rank great.
Why would google penalize for this? This is giving the visitor a page that is named exactly what he saw when the title tag was displayed in the search engines.
I don't think that Google engineers are in the Plex saying. "Let's screw people who use identical title and H1." "Gotcha you sneaky weasel!"
If somebody is getting a rankings reduction for this I bet that they have awful spammy title and H1 that on their own deserve a markdown.
<title>Best Green Widgets | Nice Green Widgets | Cheap Green Widgets</title>
If anybody knows where a credible SEO is publishing stuff like this, backed-up with good experimental data involving lots of demoted pages, please post a link here. And, if I am motivated enough by it to go out and change a huge number of pages, I'll let you know.
-
I think you should still be fine as I've not noticed any penalties when thats the case. However, you can throw the brand name into the title. "Keyword - Brand" with "Keyword" as the H1 is very common and wouldn't be overoptimized for sure.
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
-
Page Rank Worse After Optimization
For a long time, we had terrible on page SEO. No keyword targeting, no meta titles or descriptions. Just a brief 2-4 sentence product description and shipping information. Strangely, we weren't ranking too bad. For one product, we were ranking on page 1 of Google for a certain keyword. My goal to reach the top of page 1 would be easy (or so I thought). I have now optimized this page to rank better for the same keyword. I have a 276 word description with detailed specifications and shipping information. I have a strong title and meta description with keywords and modifers. I have also included a video demonstration, additional photos and an PDF of the owners manual. In my eyes, the page is 100% better than it ever was. In the eyes of MOZ, it's better also. I've got an A with the On-Page Grader. Why is this page now ranking on page 8 of Google? What have I done wrong? What can I do to correct it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dkeipper0 -
Best practice for H1 on site without H1 - Alternative methods?
I have recently set up a mens style blog - the site is made up of articles pulled in from a CMS and I am wanting to keep the design as clean as possible - so no text other than the articles. This makes it hard to get a H1 tag into the page - are there any solutions/alternatives? that would be good for SEO? The site is http://www.iamtheconnoisseur.com/ Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SWD.Advertising0 -
After reading of Google's so called "over-optimization" penalty, is there a penalty for changing title tags too frequently?
In other words, does title tag change frequency hurt SEO ? After changing my title tags, I have noticed a steep decline in impressions, but an increase in CTR and rankings. I'd like to once again change the title tags to try and regain impressions. Is there any penalty for changing title tags too often? From SEO forums online, there seems to be a bit of confusion on this subject...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Felix_LLC0 -
Does an H1 have to be at the top of a page?
Because H1 "may" carry some weight with Google does it have to be placed at the top of the page? Can I place it towards the bottom of the page instead in normal body size? My goal is to keep the main keywords in the H1 but create a much friendlier title for the customer to read at the top of the page.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PottyScotty0 -
Blog posts not showing in serps for exact match title search
hi- my first client ranks #1 for the exact phrase of each blog post title the 2nd client doesnt rank anywhere when i search for the exact post title 2nd client has robots.txt User-agent: *
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ezpro9
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/ so that shouldnt noindex any posts right? his site ranks for many kw's - but oddly none of his blog posts are anywhere to be found - i dont mean for a kw search - i mean for searching for the entire title he doesnt rank anywhere in first 5 pages for any of 6-7 posts i checked any idea what could cause this? thanks0 -
How Many Characters in an H1?
Hi, How long can the text within an H1 tag area be? Should it ideally be 1-2 words or can it be a full sentence? Or more?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mindflash0 -
Exact keyword URL or not?
Hi all, I have a quick question about the proper use of permalinks. Let's say that I have a website about sports and I want to create an internal page dedicated to shoes. I know that the keyword "shoe" has 15.000 monthly visits, while the keyword "shoes" has 1.000 monthly visits. How do I have to name the internal page? http://www.example.com/shoe or http://www.example.com/shoes (with a final 's')? I would think that by naming the URL http://www.example.com/shoes, the search engine would consider that page for the keywords "shoe" and "shoes", but I am not sure about it. Should I create a URL that only focuses on one specific keyword ("shoe", in this example) or a URL that may encompass more than one keyword ("shoe" and "shoes")? I hope this is clear. Thank you for your time and help. All best, Sal
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | salvyy0 -
Canonical Tag and Affiliate Links
Hi! I am not very familiar with the canonical tag. The thing is that we are getting traffic and links from affiliates. The affiliates links add something like this to the code of our URL: www.mydomain.com/category/product-page?afl=XXXXXX At this moment we have almost 2,000 pages indexed with that code at the end of the URL. So they are all duplicated. My other concern is that I don't know if those affilate links are giving us some link juice or not. I mean, if an original product page has 30 links and the affiliates copies have 15 more... are all those links being counted together by Google? Or are we losing all the juice from the affiliates? Can I fix all this with the canonical tag? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jorgediaz0