Every page on a website has two lines of text that most visitors never see on the page itself: the meta title (the title tag) and the meta description. They are what shows up in Google — the blue clickable headline and the grey text under it. Get them right and more people click. Make them too long and Google chops them off with “…”, often right before the part that mattered.
The short answer, in one table
| Aim for | Cut off at about | On mobile | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta title | 50–55 characters | 60 characters / 600 px | about 55 characters |
| Meta description | 145–155 characters | 160 characters / 920 px | about 120 characters |
These are guides, not hard rules. Google has changed the space it gives more than once, and it never publishes an exact number. Writing inside the “aim for” range keeps you safe through those changes.
Why Google cuts by width, not by letters
Search results have a fixed width on the screen. Google fills that space with your text, and when it runs out, it stops and adds “…”. So what matters is how wide your words are, not how many letters they have.
Letters are not all the same width. A capital W or M is about three times as wide as an i or l. That’s why these two titles, both 40 characters long, behave differently:
WHY MOST WEB MEETINGS WASTE OUR WEEKDAYS— all capitals, very wide, close to being cut.a little list of useful little utilities— narrow letters, plenty of room left.
A character count is a good rough check. To be sure, measure the width. The meta length checker does both as you type and shows a preview of how the result might look in Google.
Does the length affect ranking?
The title does, a little. The description doesn’t. Google uses the words in your title to understand what the page is about. It has said many times that the meta description is not used for ranking at all.
But both affect clicks, and clicks are the point. A title cut off mid-word, or a description that ends in “…” before saying what the page offers, gets skipped for the result next to it.
Making a title longer does not help it rank for more words. Text past the cut-off is still read by Google, but nobody sees it, and a long, stuffed title is one of the main reasons Google rewrites it.
Why Google sometimes ignores what you wrote
You may search for your own page and find a different title or description from the one you set. That’s normal. Google rewrites them when it thinks yours doesn’t match the search, and studies of real results have found the description replaced more often than not.
Google is most likely to rewrite yours when it is:
- Missing or empty — Google takes text from the page instead.
- The same on many pages — every page needs its own.
- Stuffed with keywords — “Cheap Shoes, Buy Shoes, Shoes Online, Best Shoes”.
- Far too long or far too short — a three-word title rarely survives.
- Not what the page is about — a description promising something the page doesn’t have.
You can’t stop rewriting completely, since Google may tailor the snippet to each search. But a clear, honest, right-length description is the one it keeps most often.
How to write a good meta title
- Put the main words first. People scan the first few words. “Cups to Grams Converter — Flour, Sugar, Butter” beats “Welcome to Our Kitchen Conversion Page”.
- Use the words people search for. If people search “compress PDF to 5MB”, say that, not “PDF size optimisation”.
- Put your brand at the end, if at all. “Meta Length Checker — toolbook”. If the title is already long, drop the brand — Google often shows the site name separately anyway.
- Give every page its own title. Two pages with the same title compete with each other.
How to write a good meta description
Think of it as a small ad for the page. It should answer “what will I get if I click this?” in one or two sentences.
- Say what the page gives the reader, not what it is. “See how many grams are in a cup of flour, sugar or butter” rather than “This page is about cooking conversions”.
- Put the key part in the first 120 characters, because mobile shows less.
- Include the search words naturally. Google shows matching words in bold, which draws the eye.
- End with a reason to click — “free”, “no sign-up”, “with examples” — if it’s true.
- Avoid double quotes. An unescaped
"ends the HTML attribute and cuts your description short. Use single quotes, or write".
Before and after
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| “Our tool for PDFs. We offer many PDF tools including compression, merging and more for all your PDF needs.” (106 characters, says nothing specific) | “Compress a PDF to 5MB, 10MB or any limit you name. Free, no sign-up, and your file stays on your device — ready to email or upload in seconds.” (142 characters) |
Stuck for a first draft? The meta description generator pulls the most important sentences from your page text and trims them to fit. Then edit it into your own words.
What about meta keywords?
There is no right length, because Google ignores the meta keywords tag completely and has done since 2009. Bing has said a stuffed keywords tag can count against a page. You can leave it out.
Where to find and change them
- WordPress: an SEO plugin such as Yoast or Rank Math adds title and description boxes under each post.
- Shopify, Wix, Squarespace: look for “SEO” or “Search engine listing” in each page’s settings.
- Hand-written HTML: inside
<head>, as<title>…</title>and<meta name="description" content="…">.
After you change them, Google picks up the new text the next time it visits the page. That can take a few days to a few weeks.