Dumb SEO Questions

(Entry was posted by Neil Cheesma on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 09/20/2016).

Having the same title and h1

Can someone explain why having the same title and h1 on a web page is a problem? And if/why would it be likely to affect rankings...
From Google:
"Place the title of your article in a prominent place above the article body, such as in an tag.
Make sure the title of your article page (in the html tag) matches the title of your article (in or equivalent)."
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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

  • Casey Markee: It`s not a problem. It`s just the best practice. H1 tags as a whole are a very deprecated on-site ranking factor. It`s not like it`s going to kill you if they don`t match the title OR you miss them completely (in general). But again, good EFFECTIVE SEO is all about "doing the little things." The more things you can do correctly, the better you`ll do. But when we weigh on-page factors, this is a small one, especially when you consider with HTML5 you can have multiple H1 tags on the same page. Nothing wrong with Google`s statement above. Google News is VERY competitive. Clearly it would be a smart move on your part to try to accomplish all those suggestions, where possible.
  • Steve Wiideman: Focus on solving the user`s deep down problem, and if keywords fit in then great. After Hummingbird, it`s all about user intent. If you want to consider grassroot best practices, get that most important keyword in the title and the second most important keyword within your main headline.
  • Chase Reiner: It`s because the h1 is usually the first thing people see and Google and it`s users like to see that the page they are landing on matches what the title in the search result said
  • Chase Reiner: However, if the h1 is similar enough to the title tag maybe not exact match you should be fine :)
  • Alan Bleiweiss: Nuance. The Title is usually not more than keyword phrases
  • Chase Reiner: I said basically this and I didn`t get three likes?
  • Jim Munro: You are right, Chase Reiner. I am guilty of clicking the like button on one but not the other. I don`t know why I did that but I guess part of it is about layer upon layer of credibility. It was instinctive. Alan Bleiweiss has a start on you but in another twenty years you`ll probably get 5 likes. :)
  • Jenny Halasz: So just to add to this thread, this is particularly important in Google News because it`s designed to stop clickbait-y titles in SERPs that don`t match the article headline. Google News will ignore your feed if you do it too much. You need to make the HTML Title and the H1 or the headline match.
  • Jenny Halasz: And by the way, the industry "view" that the Title and H1 should not be the same is crap. Crap made up by people who justified that recommendation by saying that if you were putting the same thing in both places you were missing real estate. And then the tools started picking up on it and listing it as an over optimization flag. And it`s all b.s. made up by people who claim to know SEO with too much time on their hands.

View original question in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 09/20/2016).