Title and meta description length: measured in pixels, not characters

What Google says

These are the statements in its developer documentation, in substance:

• About the title: there is no limit on how long a <title> element can be, but the title link is truncated in search results as needed, typically to fit the device width. Google asks you to avoid unnecessarily long or repetitive titles.
• About the description: there is no limit on the length of a meta description either, but the snippet is likewise truncated to fit the device width.
• The snippet is not always your description. Snippets are created primarily from the page's own content, and Google only sometimes uses the meta description, when it thinks it describes the page more accurately. The snippet can also change from one search to another.
• The title can be rewritten too. If Google detects a problem, it may generate a better title from headings and other text on the page. The cases it mentions: half-empty titles (for example “| Site name”), obsolete titles (an old year in the <title> while the visible heading says another), titles that do not reflect the content, and boilerplate repeated across pages.

The practical conclusion: there is no “Google limit” in characters, so any figure is a reference, not a rule.

Why characters mislead: what we measured

The width of a text depends on its letters: an “i” takes a fraction of what a “W” takes. To check how much, we measured several texts with the same method our tool uses (Arial at 20 pixels, the reference size for titles):

With the “60 characters” rule, all three titles in the table “fit” (57, 55 and 56). But one takes up 328 pixels and another 697: more than double. All-caps text is the big enemy, because capitals are much wider than lower-case letters; a 56-letter title in capitals can be cut where a 57-letter one in lower case fits whole.

These are measurements with Arial in a desktop browser. Google uses its own typeface and the available width depends on the device, so pixels are a good approximation, not an exact measure.

Reference values: use them as a warning, not a law

The SEO world usually works with about 580 pixels for the title (at 20 px) and about 920 for the description (at 14 px). These are widely used empirical values, not published by Google, and our tool uses them as a warning threshold. It also flags titles under 30 characters and descriptions under 70, because those tend to be too short to explain the page. Those are our criteria, not Google rules.

How to write them so they read well even when cut

• Most important first. What gets cut is the end: put the word that describes the page at the start and leave the brand for last.
• Avoid sustained capitals, which spend the width on fewer words.
• A different title for every page. Google advises against repeating the same text on every page and may rewrite it if it detects repeated text.
• Keep the year or date in the title current. An obsolete title is one of the reasons Google cites for rewriting it.
• Do not stuff keywords. Google calls it keyword stuffing and recommends a clear, descriptive title.
• Make the description say something useful, because Google will use it when it seems more accurate than the page content, and otherwise ignore it.

Sharing on social networks is a different matter

When someone shares your link on Facebook or LinkedIn, the title and image come from the Open Graph tags, not from the <title>. Those tags have their own rules, above all for the image; you will find them in the guide to Open Graph image sizes.

Checking yours

The title and meta description length checker measures your text in characters and in pixels (Arial), warns if it will be cut and shows a preview of how it may look in a search result. And to see how the page will look when shared on social networks, use the link preview and Open Graph tags tool. Both run in your browser.

Sources and further reading

• Google Search Central: influencing title links (no length limit; truncation by width; problems that lead to rewriting)
• Google Search Central: snippets and meta descriptions (no length limit; how snippets are created)

Figures checked on 3 October 2026.