Title Tag & Meta Description Length Checker
Paste a title and a meta description to see their real pixel width, measured in your browser, against what Google gives them on desktop and on mobile. Where a string is cut, the tool shows exactly what survives.
Short answer
Google cuts a title when it fills the box, not when it passes a character count, so width decides. This checker measures your title and description with canvas in Arial at Google's own sizes, against roughly 600px on one desktop line and 400px across two mobile lines. A 68 character title in lowercase can fit while a 55 character one in capitals is cut, the case every character counter gets wrong. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Why a character count gets this wrong
Characters are not the same width. In Arial, the font Google sets result titles in, a capital W is around four times the width of a lowercase l. A rule written in characters therefore has to be wrong in one direction or the other for almost every title: set the limit low enough to protect a title in capitals and you truncate advice for everyone writing in lowercase.
| Title | Characters | Roughly how wide | Desktop verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| WHOLESALE WATER TANKS AND PUMPS FOR FARMS | 41 | Wide: all capitals | Close to the edge |
| illustration tips for small sketchbooks | 39 | Narrow: lowercase, thin letters | Comfortably inside |
| The 2026 Guide to Ecommerce Returns Policies | 44 | Mixed case, average | Inside |
| Mmm... WOW! AMAZING MMM OFFERS MMM | 34 | Very wide: M, W and capitals | Risk of a cut |
The widths here are approximate on purpose
Those verdicts come from the same canvas measurement the tool above uses, but the box widths are Google's, and Google has changed them several times without announcing it. Treat the budget as a close working figure. What does not move is that the limit is a width.
Desktop and mobile truncate differently
A single pass or fail hides half the answer, because the two devices give a snippet different shapes. Desktop is a wider box with fewer lines; mobile is a narrower box with more of them. The same string can overflow one and fit the other.
| Field | Desktop | Mobile | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Title | One line, about 600px | Two lines, about 400px each | A long title can fit mobile and be cut on desktop |
| Meta description | Two lines, about 600px each | Three lines, about 400px each | Mobile often shows more description, not less |
| Font size | 20px title, 14px description | 18px title, 14px description | A smaller title font fits more characters per pixel |
The practical consequence is that the first clause of a title has to carry the meaning. On a desktop result it may be all there is room for, and on a mobile result it is the line a thumb scrolls past. Everything after it is a bonus.
Writing a title that fits without saying less
Fitting a title into a box is an editing problem and the usual instinct, abbreviating, is the wrong tool. What you are editing is the title tag and the meta description, the two strings that make up your entire listing in a result. Abbreviations save few pixels and cost the reader comprehension. Cutting a word saves both.
- 01
Paste the title you are actually going to ship
Including the brand suffix, if your CMS appends one. A title that fits at 54 characters in the editor is cut on the results page once a 14 character brand name is added after it, and the editor never showed you that.
- 02
Read the pixel number, not the character count
Google lays a result out in a fixed-width box and cuts the text when it fills. Width is what decides that. The character count is here because people ask for it, and it is the weaker of the two numbers on the page.
- 03
Check both devices, because they disagree
A desktop title gets one line of a 600px box, and a mobile title gets two lines of a 400px box. The same string can overflow one and fit the other, so a single pass or fail is hiding half the answer.
- 04
Put the words that earn the click first
If something has to be cut, decide what. Whatever survives to the front of the title is what a reader scanning ten blue links actually sees, so the distinguishing word belongs there rather than after the brand name.
- 05
Treat the description as advertising copy, not a limit to fill
Google rewrites descriptions roughly two thirds of the time, usually to pull a passage matching the query. A short, specific description that survives rewriting beats a 155 character one padded out to fill the box.
- 06
Shorten by cutting words, not by abbreviating
Wide capitals and punctuation cost more pixels than narrow lowercase. Removing one unnecessary word buys more room than compressing three into abbreviations, and it reads better to the person deciding whether to click.
What costs the most pixels
- Capitals, which are substantially wider than lowercase. Title Case costs more than sentence case, and ALL CAPS costs far more than either.
- A brand suffix appended by the CMS, usually 100 to 200 pixels on every title on the site, added after the author has stopped looking.
- Separator characters with spaces around them. A pipe or a dash with two spaces is three characters earning nothing.
- Filler that repeats what the rest of the title already says: the words best, complete, ultimate and guide carry almost no information in combination.
Which of these four tools you actually want
Four pages here measure titles and descriptions, sharing one measurement module so they cannot drift apart. They differ in what you give them and what you get back.
| You have | You want | The tool |
|---|---|---|
| A title you are drafting | The numbers, both devices | This page |
| A title you are drafting | To see how it reads as a result | SERP snippet preview |
| One live URL | Everything its head tag declares | Meta tag checker |
| A list of live URLs | Which titles are too long, in bulk | Bulk title checker |
If you are writing rather than auditing, this page and the snippet preview are the pair: one gives you the measurement, the other tells you whether the sentence earns the click.
What this length checker measures
Real pixel width
Laid out with canvas in Arial at Google's sizes, not estimated from characters
Desktop and mobile at once
Different box widths and line counts, so the two verdicts can differ
Title and description together
Both fields on one screen, because they are written together
The exact cut point
How many characters survive, and the string as it will be shown
Character count too
Kept alongside the width, clearly marked as the weaker number
Live as you type
No button and no run limit, because nothing leaves your browser
Nothing sent anywhere
The measurement is local, so unpublished titles stay unpublished
One shared measurement
The same module behind the SERP preview, bulk title checker and content grader
What a width cannot tell you
Frequently asked questions
What is the ideal title tag length?
Roughly 30 to 60 characters is the range most titles land in, but length is the wrong unit. Google cuts a title when it fills the box, which is about 600 pixels wide on desktop, so a 68 character title in narrow lowercase can survive while a 55 character one in capitals is cut. Use the character count as a sanity check and the pixel measurement as the answer.
Why measure pixels instead of counting characters?
Because characters are not the same width. In Arial, a capital W is roughly four times the width of a lowercase l. A checker counting characters calls a wide title fine and a narrow one broken, and both of its verdicts can be wrong on the same page. This tool lays the text out with canvas in Arial at Google's sizes, which is the same measurement the browser performs when it draws the real results page.
What is the pixel limit for a title tag?
About 600 pixels on one line on desktop, and about 400 pixels across two lines on mobile. Those are container widths that Google has changed several times and will change again without telling anyone, so treat them as a close working figure rather than a specification. What does not change is that the limit is a width, not a count.
How long should a meta description be?
Roughly 70 to 155 characters usually survives on desktop, which is about two lines of a 600 pixel box. Mobile shows more lines of narrower text, so the two devices truncate differently and this tool reports both. The more useful question is whether the description earns the click in its first sentence, because that part is almost never cut.
Does title length affect rankings?
Not directly. A title being cut costs you clicks, not position. The indirect path is real but slower: a title that no longer reads as an answer to the query gets clicked less, and sustained poor click-through on a query is a signal that a result does not fit. Fix truncation because it loses traffic today, not because it will move you up the page.
Why does Google show a different title from the one I wrote?
Because it rewrites them, and has done at scale since 2021. Google replaces a title when it judges the one you wrote too long, keyword-stuffed, boilerplate, or a poor match for the query, usually pulling the page's H1 or a heading near the matching passage instead. Writing a title that fits makes a rewrite less likely; it does not prevent one.
Does the brand suffix count towards the length?
Every pixel of it, and it is the single most common reason a title is cut. A CMS appending a separator and a brand name adds roughly 100 to 200 pixels to every title on the site, invisibly, after the editor has told the author their title is fine. Paste the full string including the suffix. If the suffix is costing you the end of your titles, drop it on your long-tail pages.
Is this the same as the SERP preview tool?
They share the same measurement code and answer different questions. The SERP snippet preview draws the result so you can see how it reads, and takes a URL as well as pasted text. This page is the measurement on its own: both devices at once, the exact pixel figure against the budget, and the character position where the cut falls. Use the preview to judge the wording, and this to get the numbers.
Does it check a live URL?
No, this one takes pasted text, which is deliberate: it is for the title you are writing rather than the title you shipped. To read what a live page is serving, use the meta tag checker for one URL or the bulk title checker for a list of them. Both report widths with this same measurement.
Is my text sent to a server?
No. The measurement runs in your browser with canvas, so the title and description you type never leave the page. That is also why it updates as you type rather than after a button press, and why there is no usage limit on it.
Why do two length checkers give me different numbers?
Usually because they are measuring different things. A tool counting characters and a tool measuring pixels will disagree about almost every title. Two pixel-based tools can also differ if they assume different container widths or a different font, since Google's own figures move. What they should agree on is the direction: a title that is comfortably inside the box in one is not cut in the other.
What happens to text after the cut?
Nothing good and nothing terrible. The words are still in your HTML and Google still reads them, so they are not wasted as a ranking signal. They are simply invisible to the person choosing which result to click, which is the only job the end of a title was doing. Put nothing there that has to be read.
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Read guideTerms this tool checks
- Title Tag
A title tag is an HTML element (<title>) that specifies the title of a web page.
- Meta Description
A meta description is an HTML meta tag that provides a brief summary of a web page's content.
- CTR (Click-Through Rate)
Click-Through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who click on your search result after seeing it.
- H1 Tag
An H1 tag is the primary heading element on a web page, indicating the main topic of the page's content.
A title that fits, on a page nobody clicks
Width is one signal and the weakest one on its own. CrawlRaven joins your crawl to Search Console, so every page comes back with the queries it ranks for, the impressions it earns and the click-through rate it converts them at, which is how you find the titles actually worth rewriting.