Title tag and meta description: what Google shows, a usable length and examples

What Google shows from the two tags

In the UK, “meta description” is searched 590 times a month, “title tag” 170 times and “meta title length” 170 times. The two tags live in the head of the page, invisible to the visitor except for the title in the browser tab. In a Google result they become two different things:

• The title link, the clickable line. Google says it is “It’s often the primary piece of information people use to decide which result to click”. To write it, Google reads the <title> element, the main visual title shown on the page, heading elements such as <h1>, og:title meta tags, other large and prominent text, anchor text and the text of links that point to the page. The title tag comes first on that list, but it is one source among several.
• The snippet, the two or so lines below. Google writes that a meta description gives “a short, relevant summary of what a particular page is about” and that “They are like a pitch that convince the user that the page is exactly what they’re looking for.” But it also says that “Google Search might show different snippets for different searches”: the same page can show your description for one search and a sentence from your text for another.

So you do not control the result. Google’s generation of title links is completely automated and takes into account both the content of a page and references to it that appear on the web. What you control is the material Google starts from: a clear title tag, a heading that says the same thing, and a description that sums up the page.

Why Google rewrites your title or your description

When Google shows something other than what you wrote, it is rarely random. For titles, it says: “If we’ve detected an issue on the page, we may try to generate an improved title link from anchors, on-page text, or other sources.” The common issues it lists:

• Half-empty <title> elements: a title that is only “| Site Name”, with the page name missing.
• Obsolete titles: last year’s date left in the title while the page shows this year’s.
• Inaccurate titles: a title that no longer matches what the page is about.
• Boilerplate: the same title repeated across many pages, so nobody can tell them apart.
• Several headings of the same size: Google may take the first one rather than the one you meant.
• A title in another language than the page.

For descriptions, the warning is about lists of keywords: Google says meta descriptions comprised of long strings of keywords don’t give users a clear idea of the page’s content, and are less likely to be displayed as a snippet. For titles, Google adds that it cannot change them by hand for one site (“While we can’t manually change title links for individual sites”): if your title is rewritten, fix the page, then wait for it to be crawled again.

Meta title length and meta description length: what is usable

Google gives no number. For titles: there’s no limit on how long a <title> element can be, the title link is truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width. For descriptions: “There’s no limit on how long a meta description can be, but the snippet is truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width.” The cut is made on screen width, not on a count of characters, so no fixed figure is exact on every phone and computer.

What you can do is write so that the cut does no harm:

1. 1
   Put the service and the town at the start of the title, and your business name at the end: if the end is cut, the customer still knows what you do and where.
2. 2
   Keep the brand short. Google suggests including just your site name at the beginning or end of each <title> element, separated from the rest of the text with a delimiter such as a hyphen, colon, or pipe.
3. 3
   Put the most useful fact first in the description (what you do, where), and the nice-to-have after (hours, how to book).
4. 4
   If you ever want to cap the snippet yourself, Google supports the max-snippet: [number] meta tag. A local business rarely needs it.

Title tag examples for a local business

The formula that works for most small businesses: service, town, then name. Three made-up examples, before and after:

• A plumber’s home page titled “Home”. Google asks you to avoid vague descriptors like “Home” for your home page. Better: “Emergency Plumber in Leeds | Hartley Plumbing” (45 characters).
• A salon with “Hair, hairdresser, hair salon, hairdressers Bristol, haircut Bristol”. Google warns that this kind of keyword stuffing can make your results look spammy to Google and to users. Better: “Hair Salon in Clifton, Bristol | The Cutting Room” (49 characters).
• An accountant whose every page says “Welcome to our website”. Google wants distinct text that describes the content of the page in the <title> element for each page on your site. Better, for the sole trader page: “Accountant for Sole Traders, Manchester | Ashworth & Co” (55 characters).

Then make the visible heading of the page (the H1) say the same thing in plain words. Google reads both, and a title tag that matches the heading has fewer reasons to be replaced.

Meta description examples for a local business

Google’s own better example is a description that explains what the shop sells and details like opening hours and location. For a local business, that is the template: what you do, where, and one practical detail that makes the customer pick you. And the meta description doesn’t just have to be in sentence format: short factual phrases are fine.

• Before, a list of keywords: “Plumber, plumbing, Leeds plumber, boiler, leaks, bathrooms, cheap plumber”.
• After: “Boiler repairs, leaks and bathroom fitting across Leeds and Wakefield. Open Monday to Saturday, free quotes by phone or online.” (127 characters).
• For the salon: “Cuts, colour and balayage in Clifton, Bristol. Open late on Thursdays, book online or call the salon.” (101 characters).

One description per page, never the same text everywhere: Google writes that “Identical or similar descriptions on every page of a site aren’t helpful when individual pages appear in search results.” Short of time? Google’s advice: “at the very least, create a description for the critical URLs like your home page and popular pages.” On WordPress or Wix, your CMS might have a search engine settings page or some other mechanism to tell search engines about meta tags: look for the SEO or search settings of each page.

What we found on small business websites

Our study of 2,747 small business websites in France checked the home page of each. The two tags are among the most often missed basics:

Our take

We would spend the time on the title tag first and the meta description second: the title is what people read to choose a result, while the description is often replaced by a sentence from your page anyway. Start with the home page and the page of your main service, write service, town, name, and stop counting characters to the unit, since Google cuts on screen width. The trap is the keyword list, in either tag: it is exactly what Google says it rewrites or ignores.

The FindMyCompany team