SEOmoz have awesome tools, OSE is far better than any other link based tool out there. But what SEOmoz doesn't have is something to manage your links. i.e. there is some software called Advanced Link Manager which doesn't really work very well but the sentiment and intention behind it is good. Same with IBP and a bunch of others, the idea is there but the practicality isn't. Raven Tools have what I perceive to be the closest thing there is to help you keep track of, organize, and manage your links.

Well I actually don't use Raven anymore (though I would like to) because I was ending up with too many memberships and software subscriptions, etc... and I couldn't afford it. So the choice was clear and simple, SEOmoz membership wins hands down, every time!

The thing Raven does have though is the project management side of things, and the link management... the link management IS the best feature in my opinion... and at the same time, the only thing lacking from SEOmoz tools (it would need to be similar though to the Raven Tools one if they made it though as that was really well put together).

You get tonnes more from SEOmoz than you do Raven... this community for a start! lol

I learnt literally every last thing I know about this stuff from following SEOmoz's stuff. When it comes down to it, knowledge is more important than any tools, and knowledge is what you get from SEOmoz.

Raven Tools is great for that

Haha, yeah Matt should be a politician

Well, not meaning to sound like too much of a suck up... but I tend to be of the opinion that what Rand says is always right lol. I therefore must graciously accept defeat on the subject... there's no way I'm going up against you on stuff haha.

I still want to know though... I mean, I totally see what you mean that there's no point in worrying about it as the time is spent better elsewhere, but anything with opinions and evidence from both sides makes me want a definitive tested answer.

My general view though is that there's far better uses of most SEOs time than worrying about H1s

Yeah but it's fun trying to find out though

What about the Matt Cutts thing, do you think there could be any truth to that?

Righty... in the interests of defending my original position

I've looked around a bit, and granted not all of these are credible sources but again Todd Malicoat is as I'm sure you'll agree. Jill Whalen in one of the below links says she'd prefer them not to match and the others are people of whom I don't know their knowledge or experience, but (and admittedly this is hearsay) one guy says he heard Matt Cutts at PubCon say they should be at least a little different.

One guy (again I don't know how credible he is as a source) said he tested it and found it can be found as more spammy if they're the same.

Anyway, it appears this debate has happened before in other places and there are some good points made, so here's the links

http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=41271

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4078221.htm

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=0a4f386adacc7769&hl=en

Over all though, I think we need to know if the test Rand and Todd spoke of ever happened, and if so what the results were.

lol it did come from a pretty good source (not me, I mean Todd)... but yeah when I dug further I found that Todd and Rand were debating it (as per the screen shots on the other comment here), so I guess you're right.

I would have thought though that usually when someone like Todd says something like that, there's got to be a pretty good reason based on his experience.

Looked at it a bit further and found another video from earlier on with Rand and Todd discussing it...

Rand: Matching Title and H1 is fine

Todd: Matching Title and H1 is bad

Conclusion: Rand says "We should test it"

But no results on the video I'm afraid lol, so still none the wiser but that does make things interesting. I wonder if the test was ever carried out and if so, what were the results?

Rand??

BTW I hope you and Todd don't mind me adding these screenshots.

h1-title2.jpg

I would have to disagree with that. To me, if there were no SEO in existence then the title would be a title and the H1 would be an H1, which as it is named is a heading. Title and heading are two different words because they mean different things (albeit only slightly).

Also, to have them both unique and that being SEO gamemanship doesn't make any sense to me, I mean, how many keywords is this page being optimized for that would allow that to work positively for SEO??

I'm guessing it must be pretty close to fact if it's those guys over at MM. They must get their info from somewhere... anyway, apparently it's because the pages may appear over-optimized if the title and h1's match, which makes sense I think. The recommendation given is that in the CMS (Joomla for example) there is often an option not to have it display the title in H1 too, it's recommended to use that option and add your own H1 unique to the title tag.

Found it

It's actually under a section about common CMS problems.

h1-title.jpg

I'll check the vid I got that from when I get home and post the reason, can't remember why it is now I just know it was described as a big "Don't Do It"

Totally agree with Alan, it can cause circular navigation problems for crawlers too.

Definitely, 100% do the 301 in any case... to whatever has been put in place of that page (assuming it's the same or similar content)