How long should a title tag and meta description be?

The short answer: keep titles to about 50–60 characters and meta descriptions to about 120–160 characters. That’s what usually fits in Google’s results without being cut off.

The longer answer is that Google doesn’t count characters at all. It cuts by pixel width: a title gets roughly 600 pixels on desktop, and whatever doesn’t fit is replaced with “…”. So two titles with the same number of characters can behave completely differently.

Element	Google desktop	Google mobile	Safe target
Title	About 600 pixels, one line	Up to two lines on a narrow screen	50–60 characters
Meta description	About two lines	About three shorter lines	120–160 characters

These are approximations. Google doesn’t publish official limits and adjusts its layout from time to time, so treat them as guidance and put the important words first.

Why pixels, not characters

Search results use a proportional font, where every letter has its own width. In the font Google uses for titles, a capital W is about 19 pixels wide, while a lowercase i is about 4. So 600 pixels holds roughly 32 capital Ws, or well over 100 lowercase i’s.

Real titles fall in between, but the effect is easy to see:

• Titles with lots of capital letters, wide letters (m, w, W, M) or numbers run out of space sooner.
• Titles with many narrow letters (i, l, t, f) and short words fit more characters.
• Emoji and symbols are wide and use up space quickly.

That’s why a character counter can say your 55-character title is fine while Google still cuts it. The meta tag checker measures in pixels with the same fonts the results pages use, so you see where the cut actually falls.

Title tags

The title is the blue link in search results, and it comes from your page’s <title> tag:

<title>How to bake sourdough at home | Example Bakery</title>

What happens when it’s too long

Google shows as much as fits and ends the line with “…”. On desktop that’s one line of about 600 pixels. On mobile the title can wrap onto a second line, so a little more fits, but the screen is narrower, so don’t rely on it.

A cut title isn’t a penalty. Google still reads the whole title, and it can still help the page match searches. The problem is that people don’t see the end of it, so anything important there is wasted.

How to write one that survives

1. Put the key words first. If the title gets cut, the start is what people see.
2. Put your brand at the end, after a separator like | or -. It’s the part you can most afford to lose.
3. Make every title unique. Pages with the same title compete with each other and look like duplicates.
4. Don’t write in capitals. All-caps titles are harder to read and much wider.
5. Describe the page honestly. A title that matches the content is less likely to be rewritten by Google (see below).

Too short is a problem too

A title like “Home” or “Blog” wastes the most visible line on the page. If yours is under about 25 characters, there’s usually room to say what the page offers.

Meta descriptions

The meta description is the grey text under the title. It comes from this tag:

<meta
  name="description"
  content="A beginner's guide to sourdough: making a starter, stretching the dough and baking a loaf with a crisp crust."
/>

It doesn’t affect rankings directly, but it’s your pitch for the click, so it’s worth getting right.

How much fits

On desktop, Google usually shows about two lines, around 150–160 characters. On mobile, the lines are shorter, but there are usually three, so a similar amount fits. Aim for 120–160 characters, and make sure the first 120 or so make sense on their own, in case the rest is cut.

Too short gets replaced

Very short descriptions, under about 70 characters, often get replaced with text Google picks from the page. One or two full sentences give it something worth showing.

How to write a good one

1. Sum the page up in plain words: what it is and why it’s useful.
2. Lead with the most important point.
3. Include the main search phrase naturally. Google often highlights words that match the search.
4. Write a unique one for each page. A sitewide description is often ignored.
5. Avoid double quotes inside the text, which can cut the tag short in some setups. Use single quotes or rephrase.

Why Google sometimes shows something else

Google rewrites titles and descriptions when it thinks other text would match a search better. Descriptions are rewritten often, because Google may pick a sentence from the page that answers that particular search. Titles are rewritten less often, usually when they are:

• very long, or stuffed with keywords;
• the same as other pages on the site;
• empty, or generic like “Home”;
• clearly different from what the page is about.

You can’t stop rewrites completely, but a clear, accurate title and a description that genuinely sums the page up make them much less likely.

What about Bing?

Bing’s results are about the same width as Google’s, so the same targets work. It sometimes cuts a little differently, which is why the meta tag checker shows a separate Bing preview.

Search titles and share titles can differ

The <title> is for search results. When a link is shared on social networks, platforms use og:title instead, if you have one. You can make the two different: for example, include your brand in the search title but leave it out of the share title, since the site name already appears in the card. The Open Graph meta tags guide covers the share tags.

Common mistakes

1. Trusting a character count. Fifty-five wide characters can be cut while seventy narrow ones fit. Check the pixel width.
2. Brand first. “Example Bakery | How to bake sourdough at home” puts the useful part where it’s most likely to be cut.
3. The same title or description on every page, often from a theme or a template default.
4. Keyword stuffing. “Sourdough, sourdough bread, sourdough recipe” reads badly and invites a rewrite.
5. Two title or description tags, usually from a theme and a plugin both adding them. Search engines take one and ignore the other.
6. Tags added by JavaScript only. Search engines can run scripts, but not always straight away. Put the title and description in the HTML your server sends.

Check yours

Paste any address into the meta tag checker. It previews the page in Google on desktop and mobile and in Bing, measures the title and description in pixels, shows exactly where each is cut, and checks the other tags search engines use, such as robots and canonical.