1script - 9:55 pm on Jun 25, 2012 (gmt 0)

I don't understand the [easily agreed upon here] notion of "only an SEO would do it" in relation to anchor text matching the title and H1 tags.

It is very common in CMSes, including forum and blog platforms every time you have a list of pages be that a category, tag, forum posts or just about any kind of list there is, to link to the pages using their title as the anchor page. That's, after all, why it's called a "title" - it's the best way to address a page because it's literally the name of the page. Since <title> goes to the top of the browser window and not rendered on the page, H1 is often simply the same phrase - it would be silly to not show its own name on a page, and the top-level header H1 is the best place to put it.

Compounding the "pile up" on the title phrase is the fact that many CMSes include so-called "search engine friendly" URLs which take that very same phrase, URL-encode it and make it not only the name but also a part of the address of the page. I have to agree, it does sound like an SEO-related approach, but it is a very common, very basic and a natural one.

I propose a dissenting view that you don't have to be an SEO (whatever the definition) to have multiple links on your site and others that use the very same phrase for a part of URL address, anchor text, title and H1 for most of your content pages.

In addition to that, the same phrase may also surface in link titles (href title=""), image "alt" and "title" tags, rich snippets, RSS feeds (of several different formats), sitemap (through "se-friendly" URLs), FB and Twitter updates and I'm guaranteed to have missed a few other places, all without you trying to "game the system" as it were, and just using either the natural way of addressing a page as you would in a (paper) book or simply using default settings in your CMS.

Don't you guys think the word "over-optimization" has been severely "over-used" lately?