Title Tag & Meta Description Lengths = Pixels

Written by Dylan Thomas

• Posted on November 23, 2012
• • SEO
• No Comments »

When writing title tags and meta descriptions, there are certain length limits put in place by Google to ensure their results look nice and clean.

The rule of thumb is 70 characters for title tags and 150-160 characters for meta descriptions in terms of length.

Whilst this is a good guide to work off, if you really want to ensure your title tags and meta descriptions are working to the best of their abilities you need to measure lengths by pixels.

Google’s search results are measured by around 505 pixels horizontally.

This means that, whilst a 70 character title tag or a 150 character meta description is usually OK, there can be some exceptions.

500 pixels is the ideal title tag and meta description length

As shown in the image below, a title tag or meta description that sits at 500 pixels or under will be shown in SERPs without being cut off. The title tag displayed is 64 characters in length before the cut off.

The words that have been cut off are “Low Prices”. Adding these words takes the total title tag length to 75 characters.

The image below shows the other search results for the example above.

Here are the statistics for the other title tags shown (full title tags taken from page source). Anything in red is not shown in the SERPs:

#	Title Tag	Character
1	Australia’s BEST Online Bike Shop, BEST prices, FAST shipping	61
2	The Bicycle Store — Australia’s Online & Retail Bike Shop	57
3	Bikes & Accessories – Buy Bikes & Accessories Online at Everyday Low Prices	64
4	Bike & Cycles Store | Cycling Bikes for Sale Online | Shop @ aaaaaaaa	69

 

And for the meta descriptions (again, full meta descriptions taken from page source):

	Meta Description	Characters
1	Buy your next bike from us online. Best prices. Fast shipping. Big range. Best brands.	86
2	Search a large range of new & used motorbikes, motorbikes for sale online or sell your own motorbike for $60 total cost! Find new motorcycle information, new motorbikes dealer specials, motorbike reviews, motorbike news & advice.	229
3	None found – meta description in search results is taken from content on the page itself. Shown below: 106 products – Online only special. Price may differ in store. Ends October 31st. While stocks last. Buy more and save on delivery. Availability: Buy now online …	161
4	aaaaaaaa is Australia’s's largest online cycle shop. We have a full range of mountain bikes, road bikes, parts, clothing, and accessories all at discount prices.	161

Analysis – Title Tag Length

What does the above example show us about title tag lengths?

• It doesn’t matter if your title tag is below 70 characters, it can still get cut off
• If you use non-alpha/numeric characters in your title tag, it may get changed to suit the search (as shown in example number 4)

Analysis – Meta Description Length

What does the above example show us about meta description length?

• Having a short meta description doesn’t penalise you
• A really long meta description will still be used, but it will be cut off once the second line hits 500 pixels wide
• Not having a meta description will mean sometimes useless content will be used in your SERP (see example 3)

Posted on November 23, 2012