Exact match Title and H1 tags, and over optimization

[McTaggart]

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?

[OlegKorneitchouk]

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.

[EGOL]

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]

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.

[SEMbyotic]

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]

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]

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]

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.