How long should a title tag be? Pixels, not characters

Every SEO checklist says "keep the title under 60 characters", and every SEO has seen a 55-character title cut off and a 65-character one shown in full. The rule is a rough translation of the real limit, which is measured in pixels. This guide explains the actual mechanism, when Google ignores your title altogether, and how to write one that works — with the SERP preview to measure yours.

The limit is pixels

Google renders the title link in a fixed-width box: about 580 pixels on desktop, a little less on mobile, in a font around 20 px. Text that overflows is cut and an ellipsis added. Wide letters (W, M, capitals) use more of the box than narrow ones (i, l, t), so "60 characters" is only the average — a title in capitals may be cut at 45, one of narrow lowercase letters may fit 70. Measuring the string in the actual font, as the preview tool does, is the only reliable check. Character counts remain a fine rule of thumb: 50–60 is safe for ordinary mixed-case text.

When Google rewrites your title

Since 2021 Google has generated its own title links for a meaningful share of results, drawing on the H1, other headings, link text pointing at the page and the site name. Its documentation lists the triggers: titles that are too long, stuffed with keywords, boilerplate repeated across pages ("Home", "Untitled"), missing altogether, or that don't describe the page's content. Two practical consequences. First, make the title and H1 agree — when they conflict, the H1 often wins. Second, a title that is specific, honest and normal length is usually kept verbatim; a title written for a keyword tool is the one most likely to be replaced.

Writing a title that survives

• Front-load the specific promise. The part that survives truncation is the start; put the page's unique subject there, the brand at the end (or drop it — Google shows the site name separately now).
• One page, one subject. "Image Compressor" beats "Image Compressor, Resizer, Converter and More" — the list dilutes relevance and reads as stuffing.
• Match the search, not the sitemap. People search "compress jpg online", not "Compression utility". Say what they'd type, in natural words.
• Add the differentiator if there's room: free, no upload, 2026, for Mac — whatever is true and decisive.
• Avoid ALL CAPS and symbol strings. Wide, cut early, and a rewrite trigger.

The headline analyzer checks the promise; the preview checks the width.

Meta descriptions: the same logic

Descriptions have a wider box — roughly 920 pixels, about 155–160 characters of ordinary text on desktop, fewer on mobile — and Google replaces them even more often than titles, choosing a snippet from page text that matches the query. Write them anyway: when kept, a good description is a free advertisement, and when Google picks its own, a clear first paragraph on the page gives it good material. A description is a sentence someone would want to click, not a keyword list, and it should say what the page delivers, not tease it. It has no ranking effect at all; its job is the click.

Checking before you publish

Paste the title, URL and description into the preview and look at the bars: green fits, amber is close, red will be cut. Then read the result as a stranger would — does it say what the page is and why to choose it? For the page's structure beyond the title, What structured data is, and what it does for a page covers the markup that decorates results, and the meta tag generator writes the tags. Titles are the cheapest ranking and click-through lever a site has, and most of them are written last.