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
-
Video titles and descriptions
Hi everyone, I have a question about embedding videos on a website: if you optimize the title and description for the video in Youtube, will these be taken into account for the ranking of the page where the video is embedded? Or will only the Youtube link for the video show in SERP's, instead of the page itself? I've read in a post of Phil Nottingham that it's usually not a good idea to embed a Youtube video on your own site, but use Wistia instead, exactly to avoid cannibalisation of your own rankings. Is this correct? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mat_C0 -
Is single H1 tag still best practice?
Hi Guys, Is having a single h1 tag still best practice for SEO? Guessing multiple h1 tags dilute the value of the tag and keywords within the tag. Thoughts? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kayl870 -
Best Practices for Title Tags for Product Listing Page
My industry is commercial real estate in New York City. Our site has 300 real estate listings. The format we have been using for Title Tags are below. This probably disastrous from an SEO perspective. Using number is a total waste space. A few questions:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
-Should we set listing not no index if they are not content rich?
-If we do choose to index them, should we avoid titles listing Square Footage and dollar amounts?
-Since local SEO is critical, should the titles always list New York, NY or Manhattan, NY?
-I have red that titles should contain some form of branding. But our company name is Metro Manhattan Office Space. That would take up way too much space. Even "Metro Manhattan" is long. DO we need to use the title tag for branding or can we just focus on a brief description of page content incorporating one important phrase? Our site is: w w w . m e t r o - m a n h a t t a n . c o m <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Turnkey Flatiron Tech Space | 2,850 SF $10,687/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Gallery, Office Rental | Midtown, W. 57 St | 4441SF $24055/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Open Plan Loft |Flatiron, Chelsea | 2414SF $12,874/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Tribeca Corner Loft | Varick Street | 2267SF $11,712/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| 275 Madison, LAW, P7, 3,252SF, $65 - Manhattan, New York |0 -
H Tags in Menu
Hi I am checking the H2 tags on this page https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/dollies-load-movers-door-skates I have noticed my dev team have implemented H2's on the categories in the menu. Will this completely confuse Google as to what that page is about? In my opinion those links shouldn't be heading tags at all
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Yoast seo title question
I was referred to this plugin and have found it to be the most irritating and poorly designed plugin in the world. I want to be able to set my titles without it changing my page headers as well. For instance - If I set my title to be "This is my article name | site name" it will make my H1 tag read the same. I do not want or desire this nonsense. Why would they think this is something wise? Why would I want my site name on every single H1 tag on my site? How can I fix this? I only want my title to be my title. I want my H1 tag to remain the post/page name that I define in wordpress.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atomicx0 -
Adding a Canonical Tag to each page referencing itself?
Hey Mozers! I've noticed that on www.Zappos.com they have a Canonical tag on each page referencing it self. I have heard that this is a popular method but I dont see the point in canon tagging a page to its self. Any thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rpaiva0 -
Does a UTM tag influence the linkvalue?
Will Google value a link with a UTM tag the same as a clean link without a UTM tag? I should say that a UTM tag link is not a natural link so the linkvalue is zero. Anyone any idea how to look at this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TT_Vakantiehuizen0 -
Wildcard Redirects & Canonical Tags
I have an interesting situation. Current URLs Example1: www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NakulGoyal
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234-1.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234-1-1.html Canonical on All Above URLs:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234.html New URL:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-4567.html Current URLs Example2: www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10-1.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10-1-1.html Canonical on All Above URLs:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10.html New URL:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-6789.html Current URLs Example3: www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5-1.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5-1-1.html Canonical on All Above URLs:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5.html New URL:
www.domain.com/american-red-widgets-cid-6789+5.html I want to make sure all variations of the above URL redirect to the new URLs. However, as you see in Example 3, we are dealing with variables that are passed on. (+5 in this case). Question 1: What wildcard 301 redirect / regular expression can I use to tackle these ? Question 2: If we redirect www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5.html to www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-6789+5.html and www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-6789+5.html contains the canonical tag www.domain.com/american-red-widgets-cid-6789+5.html, any concerns or red flags here ?0