What is a title tag checker?
A title tag checker shows how a page's title and meta description will look in Google results. It also shows where Google cuts each one. The title, often called the meta title, SEO title or website title, comes from the <title> element. The description, sometimes called the SEO description, comes from the <meta name="description"> tag in the page's head.
Google doesn't cut titles at a set number of characters. On desktop it shortens a long title to fit a fixed width and ends it with three dots after a whole word. On a phone it sends the whole title, and the browser shows up to two lines.
We measured Google's US English results on October 28, 2026. The cut points and character widths the checker uses come from what we found there.
- Type or paste the page title and meta description, or enter a page URL and press Fetch page.
- Compare the desktop and phone search result previews to see where each one gets cut.
- Watch the desktop width bar, which turns amber when the title is too wide to show in full.
- Work through the What to fix list, then press Copy HTML to copy both tags.
The checker covers the title and description. For the other tags in a page's head, the Meta Tag Generator writes the robots, canonical and viewport tags, and the Open Graph Generator builds the tags behind link previews. The Source Code Viewer shows a page's full HTML.
What does the checker flag in a title and description?
The What to fix list covers the cuts and several problems Google's documentation warns about.
- Cuts: a title too wide for desktop, a title that needs more than two lines on a phone, and a description past about 160 characters.
- Weak titles: a missing or vague title such as "Home", a separator left at either end, repeated words, an old year, HTML code typed as text, and a site name Google is likely to drop.
- Weak descriptions: a missing or very short description, one that reads like a keyword list, and one that repeats the title.
- Live page problems: a noindex rule, a nosnippet or max-snippet limit, more than one title or description, and a missing or repeated H1.
How long can a title tag be before Google cuts it?
On desktop, Google cut titles once they were wider than about 554 pixels in 20px Arial. For most titles we saw, that's about 57 to 62 characters, up to 67 when a title has few capital letters, and fewer in all capitals.
Google shows those titles in its own font, Google Sans, at 22 pixels. Widths in that font don't line up with where titles got cut, but the summed widths of 20px Arial characters do, so the checker measures in Arial.
We base that on 18 desktop results, 9 cut and 9 shown in full. Every title Google displayed, cut or not, measured 550.2 pixels or less. The narrowest cut title whose full text we know came to 558, so we put the limit halfway, at about 554. That's our estimate, not a rule Google publishes.
Character counts are a poor guide, as these two titles from the same day show. We copied both exactly as the sites wrote them.
Two titles from Google desktop results on October 28, 2026, as written
| Title | Characters | Summed width in 20px Arial | Desktop result |
|---|
| FREE Meta Tag Analyzer - Check You SEO Title & Description | 58 | 558 px | Cut to "FREE Meta Tag Analyzer - Check You SEO Title & ..." |
| Title tag: the ultimate reference guide to make it work for you | 63 | 537 px | Shown in full |
Phones work differently. Google sends the whole title, and a phone 375 pixels wide shows up to two lines of it. The 58-character title in the table fits on a phone in full. When a title needs a third line, the browser cuts it, sometimes partway through a word, and ends it with three dots.
Keep a meta description under about 150 characters, or about 130 if Google shows a date before it. Google's documentation says the snippet is cut as needed, typically to fit the device width.
On desktop, the 41 cut snippets we checked kept 137 to 166 characters before the three dots, with a median of 156. When Google shows a date at the start of a snippet, the date counts toward that length.
Phones show the same text in up to three lines, so a long description can lose more of its end on a phone.
Why does Google show a different title than the one you wrote?
Google builds the title link, the clickable headline of a result, from several sources. Its guide "Influencing your title links in search results" names sources such as the <title> element, the main heading, other headings, the og:title tag, link text pointing to the page and WebSite structured data.
The same guide lists the problems that lead Google to change a title. They include half-empty titles such as "| Site Name", an outdated year, a title that doesn't match the page, and a site name that repeats the one Google already shows above the title.
Leaving out the site name was the most common change in our sample. Of the 17 titles that ended with a site name, Google showed 15 without it. It dropped just the name from 13 and replaced the whole title with the page's H1 in 2.
What is the difference between a title tag and an H1?
The title tag names the page in browser tabs and search results. The H1 is the main heading shown on the page itself, and Google reads both when it writes a title link.
The title tag and the H1 heading compared
| Question | Title tag | H1 heading |
|---|
| Where people see it | Browser tab, bookmarks and search results | On the page, usually near the top |
| Where it sits in the HTML | Inside <head> | Inside <body> |
| How many a page can have | One | Several are allowed, but one is clearest |
| What happens to long text | Cut in desktop results near 554 px of 20px Arial | Wraps onto more lines |
| How Google uses it | First source listed for the title link | Also a source, and Google may use the first heading when the main title is unclear |
Common mistakes
Watch for these title and meta description mistakes.
- Brand name first: opening with the site name pushes the words about the page toward the desktop cut. Google accepts the name at either end, but putting it last keeps the topic visible.
- One description for every page: Google's documentation says identical descriptions on every page aren't helpful when individual pages appear in search results. Write one for each page that matters.
- Counting characters: a title full of capitals and wide letters such as W and M runs out of room long before 60 characters, the limit many guides give. Check the pixel width instead.
Is the meta description a ranking factor?
Google has said the meta description isn't used in ranking. Its Webmaster Central blog stated this on September 21, 2009, adding that Google sometimes shows the description as the snippet.
Why does Google show a different description than mine?
Google writes most snippets from the text on the page, picking what fits each search. It may use the meta description when that describes the page better than the page text does.
Does Google show more of a title on phones?
Google usually shows more of a long title on phones, because a phone result can use two lines. By our measurements, phones show more of 8 of the 11 sample titles that were too wide for desktop, including 4 in full.
Should the brand name go in the title tag?
Yes, put a short brand name at the end of the title tag, after a hyphen or a pipe. Browser tabs and bookmarks show it, even though Google left the name out of 15 of the 17 titles we checked that ended with one.
How long does Google take to show a new title?
A new title can take a few days to a few weeks to appear, according to Google's documentation. Google has to recrawl the page first, and you can request a recrawl with the URL Inspection tool in Search Console.
How do you find the title tag of a website?
Open the page's source with Ctrl+U in Chrome (Option+Command+U on a Mac) and search it for <title>. The checker's Fetch page button reads the page's HTML through our server, though it skips some sites and pages, such as social networks and login pages.
What happens if a meta description is too long?
Google cuts the snippet and adds three dots, so the end of a long description usually doesn't appear. Put the words that matter most in the first 130 to 150 characters.
