Every page on your site can tell search engines what its title and description should be. When someone searches, the result often shows those two texts. If they are too long, the end is replaced by "…". If they are empty or vague, the search engine writes its own. Knowing how the limits work saves you from guessing.
Pixels, not characters
You will often read "keep titles under 60 characters". That is a rough rule. Search results are drawn in a fixed-width box, and the text is cut when it reaches the edge. Wide letters such as W and M use more space than narrow ones such as i and l, so one 60-character title may fit and another may not. In our tests with a common sans-serif font at 20 pixels, titles of around 580 pixels were the point where cutting began. Descriptions are shown in smaller type, and roughly 150 to 160 characters usually fit on a desktop result.
These numbers are estimates. Search engines change their design and limits without announcing it, and phones show different widths from computers. Treat them as guidelines.
What a good title does
- It names the page in the first few words, because the end is the part that gets cut.
- It matches what the page really contains. Misleading titles make people leave quickly.
- It is different from the title of every other page on your site.
- It includes your brand at the end if you want it, separated by a bar or dash.
What a good description does
A description is not a ranking switch. Its job is to help a person decide to click. Say what the page offers in one or two plain sentences, and include the main idea the visitor searched for. Do not copy the same text to every page, and do not stuff it with repeated phrases.
Search engines may rewrite your text
Even a perfect description is not guaranteed to appear. If the search words match a passage in your page better than your description, the engine may show that passage instead. This is normal. Write the description anyway: it is used often enough to be worth the minute.
Try it
Type your title and description, and the preview shows how wide they are and where they may be cut. Nothing is uploaded; the measuring happens in your browser. When you are happy with the wording, build the full set of tags with the Meta Tag Generator.
A quick checklist
- Put the main words first in the title.
- Check that the title and description are not cut in the preview.
- Make sure no two pages share the same title.
- Read both texts aloud. Would you click?
For the technical side of getting pages found, see how robots.txt and sitemaps work.