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
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
-
"Google chose different canonical than user" Issue Can Anyone help?
Our site https://www.travelyaari.com/ , some page are showing this error ("Google chose different canonical than user") on google webmasters. status message "Excluded from search results". Affected on our route page urls mainly. https://www.travelyaari.com/popular-routes-listing Our canonical tags are fine, rel alternate tags are fine. Can anyone help us regarding why it is happening?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RobinJA0 -
Does Google want contact numbers in the meta description?!
Reading up it seems like there's complete free reign to enter what you want in the meta description and they are not considered a direct ranking signal However I have added contact numbers to the meta descriptions for around 20 reasonably high ranking pages for my company and it seems to have had a negative effect (taken screen grabs and previous rankings) More strangely when you 'inspect' the page the meta description features the desired number yet when you find the page in the serps the meta description just does not feature the number (page has been cached and the description does not carry on) I'm wondering whether such direct changes are seen as spam and therefore negative to the page?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jacksons_Fencing1 -
Buy exact match domain and 301 worth it?
So there is this exact match domain that gets about 500 visitors a day. it has trust flow 17 and citation flow of 23 which is just a little lower than our own website. The website talks about one of our keywords and rank on second page in SERPs. I am not interested in buying and running that website, but rather just to liquidate all the pages with 301s into our existing domain and onto relevant pages. So the 301s would be to relevant pages. The question is, would this strategy be worth it in todays SEO world and Google updates?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TVape0 -
Hidden H1 Tags
I am trying to triple check this - I have a client who has all of their H1 tags as hidden. As far as I am concerned, anything hidden is not a good thing for SEO. I am debating with their online store provider that this is not good practice. Everything I am reading says it is not good practice. They are saying it is for "My SEO experience would suggest otherwise. In addition, the H1 adds semantic value for users with disabilities to help give them context with what the content of the page is." Did I miss something? They are a large brand and have not been penalized. This has been happening for 8 months.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | smulto0 -
Branded Anchor Text, Exact vs. Non-exact Match Domain
Hello, For NLPCA.com, when you search for "NLP California" in Google,the letters "nlp" are bolded in the SERP URL and so is "ca". See here. This is because "ca" is an abbreviation for "California" Thus, this is not an exact match domain but it is close. What should our branded anchor text be? I want to change the anchor text profile to 98% branded anchor text. The 3 names our company goes by are NLP California NLP Institute of California NLP and Coaching Institute Let me know if we should not use one or more of these names for branded anchor text.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Can anyone tell me why this site ranks so well?
Site in question: cellphoneshop.net From what I can tell from their link profile, the links they garner don't appear to be particularly high value but they dominate organic listings for my vertical (cell phone accessories), esp. in the last 2-3 months when Google was supposedly increasing the quality of their search results. Can anyone tell me why in particular this site ranks so well for competitive short and long tail terms?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | eugeneku0 -
Are duplicate item titles harmful to my ecommerce site?
Hello everyone, I have an online shopping site selling, amongst other items, candles. We have lots of different categories within the LED candles category. One route a customer can take is homepage > LED candles > Tealights. Within the tealights category we have 7 different products which vary only in colour. It is necessary to create separate products for each colour since we have fantastic images for each colour. To target different keywords, at present we have different titles (hence different link texts, different URLs and different H1 tags) for each colour, for example "Battery operated LED candles, amber", "Flameless candles, red" and "LED tealights, blue". I was wondering if different titles to target different keywords is a good idea. Or, is it just confusing to the customer and should I just stick with a generic item title which just varies by colour (eg. "LED battery candles, colour")? If I do the latter, am I at risk of getting downranked by Google since I am duplicating the product titles/link texts/URLs/H1 tags/img ALTs? (the description and photos for each colour are unique). Sorry if this is a little complicated - please ask and I can clarify anything...because I really want to give the best customer experience but still preserve my Google ranking. I have attached screenshots of the homepage and categories to clarify, feel free to go on the site live too. Thank you so much, Pravin BqFCp.jpg KC2wB.jpg BEcfX.jpg
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | goforgreen0 -
What on-page/site optimization techniques can I utilize to improve this site (http://www.paradisus.com/)?
I use a Search Engine Spider Simulator to analyze the homepage and I think my client is using black hat tactics such as cloaking. Am I right? Any recommendations on to improve the top navigation under Resorts pull down. Each of the 6 resorts listed are all part of the Paradisus brand, but each resort has their own sub domain.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Melia0