Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Check yours now
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Exact match Title and H1 tags, and over optimization

    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

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4
    8
    3141
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • McTaggart
      McTaggart last edited by

      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?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • EGOL
        EGOL @SEMbyotic last edited by

        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.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • SEMbyotic
          SEMbyotic @EGOL last edited by

          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.

          EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • EGOL
            EGOL @SEMbyotic last edited by

            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.

            SEMbyotic 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • SEMbyotic
              SEMbyotic @EGOL last edited by

              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.

              EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • McTaggart
                McTaggart @EGOL last edited by

                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.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • EGOL
                  EGOL last edited by

                  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.

                  McTaggart SEMbyotic 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 3
                  • OlegKorneitchouk
                    OlegKorneitchouk last edited by

                    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.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                    • 1 / 1
                    • First post
                      Last post

                    Got a burning SEO question?

                    Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                    Start my free trial


                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • ColesNathan

                      Is it best practice to have a canonical tags on all pages

                      The website I'm working on has no canonical tags. There is duplicate content so rel=canonicals need adding to certain pages but is it best practice to have a tag on every page ?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ColesNathan
                      0
                    • Kingalan1

                      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:
                      -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 |

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
                      0
                    • PeteC12

                      H2 Tags- Can you have more than 1 H2 tag

                      Hi All, Screaming frog has identified that we have a few H2 tags on our pages , although we only have 1 H1 tag. We have numerous H3,H4's etc. I am wondering, is it good SEO to have only 1 H2 tag like with H1 tag or can you have more ? thanks Peter

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC12
                      0
                    • s_EOgi_Bear

                      Wordpress Tag Pages - NoIndex?

                      Hi there. I am using Yoast Wordpress Plugin. I just wonder if any test have been done around the effects of Index vs Noindex for Tag Pages? ( like when tagging a word relevant to an article ) Thanks 🙂 Martin

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear
                      0
                    • GalcoIndustrial

                      Lowercase VS. Uppercase Canonical tags?

                      Hi MOZ, I was hoping that someone could help shed some light on an issue I'm having with URL structure and the canonical tag. The company I work for is a distributor of electrical products and our E-commerce site is structured so that our URL's (specifically, our product detail page URL's) include a portion (the part #) that is all uppercase (e.g: buy/OEL-Worldwide-Industries/AFW-PG-10-10). The issue is that we have just recently included a canonical tag in all of our product detail pages and the programmer that worked on this project has every canonical tag in lowercase instead of uppercase.  Now, in GWT, I'm seeing over 20,000-25,000 "duplicate title tags" or "duplicate descriptions". Is this an issue?  Could this issue be resolved by simply changing the canonical tag to reflect the uppercase URL's?  I'm not too well versed in canonical tags and would love a little insight. Thanks!

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GalcoIndustrial
                      0
                    • PottyScotty

                      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 | | PottyScotty
                      0
                    • SamCUK

                      Easy way to change wordpress category titles. Currently categories are appearing with the same title?!

                      I'm working on a wordpress adult dating review site and have started to set up categories for each of my main keywords. I have also started to add sub categories by county and town and so far have done so for the counties of 'Lincolnshire' and 'Derbyshire'. The problem is though that for each of my subcategories the page titles are appearing the same. For example: www.mysite.com/category/online-dating/lincolnshire/spalding (root category online dating) shows the title as 'Spalding'. www.mysite.com/category/adult-dating/lincolnshire/spalding also has the title 'Spalding' even though it's root category is different (adult dating). It's probably easier to go to http://www.top-10-dating-reviews.com to see how it's set up. If you click in the category text in the top menu and navigate to dating/derbyshire/alfreton for example and then adult dating/derbyshire/alfreton you'll notice the page titles are the same. I use all in one SEO pack and have rewrite titles checked with category titles set to %category_title% | %blog_title%. I also use category SEO updater. In order to prevent duplicate content issues how can I simply make the title of each category category root title/category subtitle(county)/category subtitle 2(town). The title of each category page would then read for example Online Dating Lincolnshire Spalding.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SamCUK
                      0
                    • AWCthreads

                      Does City In Title Tag Inhibit Broader Reach?

                      I use our city/state in the majority of our title tags and consequently we do very well locallly for the majority of terms on our ecommerce site. I'm wondering however, if this "localized" optimization will inadvertently affect our keyword rankings outside of our city/state? If a keyword query does not include our city or state, would Google interpret our titles as less relevent and therefore move other results ahead of ours? The city/state is last in the string on the title: Blue Widgets - Our Company in City, State Thanks for any insight.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.