Should Title Tags Differ From H1's?

[KempRugeLawGroup]

I never thought this was an issue, but now, I'm not so sure. Is it a problem for your title tags to be identical to your H1's? From Moz' OnPage Grader section on "H1's and Title Tags," I thought they were supposed to both match your keyword.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Ruben

[EGOL]

If Google was zapping people for matching title and h1 then my site would be toasted.

If Google was zapping people for matching title and h1 then huge numbers of people would be busting into this forum crying that they got whacked.

I think that the idea of Google punishing people for matching title and h1 is total rubbish.  Does anyone know and have a link to a serious person's website who is publishing this stuff?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Ruben,

Some say it's fine, others say it's dangerous - and there is a discussion here on MOZ that took place some time ago. However, there doesn't seem to be any conclusive data either way to suggest that it's a problem.

That said, I do recall that with one of the algorithms, Google did say to make sure your site isn't too obviously templated and avoid repetition. As a matter of course, I would suggest you make sure these aren't the same as it is another opportunity to get additional keyword diversity in there.

-Andy

[simplycary]

Use each as an opportunity to deeply target the context of the page. Where title's have to be >60 Characters - we're allowed more wiggle room with H1.

I target specifically what I'm targeting in my title - and I use  contextually similar  text in H1.

Duplicating isn't going to hurt, but its a missed opportunity to draw deeper relevance and co-occurrence of other related terms.