Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Page Title (Meta descriptions) length... how strict are you?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Page Title (Meta descriptions) length... how strict are you?

    On-Page Optimization
    7
    6
    1619
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • JohnW-UK
      JohnW-UK last edited by

      I have just had a conversation with a client... the gist was this...

      Is it more important to stay under the 55-60 characters OR go over a bit and have the page title make sense and include the clients company name.

      The same argument for meta description. I have a client insisting on 55-60 length but the keywords are long and if we use the primary keyword phrase the length is 44 if we use the keyword phrase and add the company name it becomes 64. This is with us trimming it a bit.

      Anyone else discussed this before?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • Dr-Pete
        Dr-Pete Staff @CleverPhD last edited by

        I'd tend to agree. It won't harm you to go over, but since no one's going to see it, what's the point, generally. Now, if you feel thinks are being cut off arbitrarily (like the name of a product) and those keywords should be included somehow, fine - go over the limit. You can potentially rank for those terms and they may show up in other places. Some directories, social networks, etc. read the title tags, too.

        If it's just ego, though, like a long brand name, I'd suggest letting it go. Unless you're a really big brand, it's not going to matter that much, and you're likely to rank for your brand anyway. If the brand is getting cut off, then name recognition won't help your CTR anyway.

        Usability research definitely shows that people pay much more attention to the front of a headline, and even just the first two words, so even if a longer title "makes sense", people may not care or even see it. So, sometimes, I think we obsess over getting something just right that may not end up mattering that much, practically.

        Personally, I'd pick a different battle with the client, and maybe just keep a few long that are critically important.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • BradsDeals
          BradsDeals last edited by

          FWIW, Google indexes title tags way beyond what it displays, possibly up to 164 characters. I've always considered that a valuable bit of intel to consider. (The post I linked to is ancient by SEO standards but I'd imagine it's still relevant, some nice work from Hugo Guzman.)

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • ClaytonJ
            ClaytonJ last edited by

            We discuss it all the time, good topic.  The new WMT's search console has been enlightening. We have enough data to show that professional Titles, extended to or close to the maximum 512 pixels - has a better CTR on mobile than short or truncated versions. The Meta description is more important for desktop.

            In short it it best to professionalize both.  The Title can extend to 512 pixels before it truncates. There are a number of free tools where this can be measured prior to implementation.  The meta description is not clear but up to 156 characters google seems comfortable in not truncating - however the meta description is more loosely used by google. Sometimes google insert a date .. and that undoes all the hard work.

            In summary they are serious business and not to be taken lightly given the combined impact on seo and clickability. So in my view if the target client is mobile based stay within the 512 pixels. If desktop roll the dice...

            Hope that assists.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • NEdocs
              NEdocs last edited by

              To be honest, it does not make a huge difference. The reason for staying within the 55-60 character limit is so that your title does not get truncated in the SERPs. While it is not necessarily detrimental, it could impact click-through rates. Keep in mind - this limit is still not perfect. Depending on the pixel width of the letters used, you could still end up losing some of your title. Keep your keywords near the front, keep it natural, and you will be fine.

              Tool for checking SERP titles: https://moz.com/blog/new-title-tag-guidelines-preview-tool

              As for company name, it really only helps if the company has strong brand recognition. If no one is performing searches based on or including their name...inserting it into every page will not help the cause. Generally speaking, a search for a company name will yield results including their website regardless of company name placement in their title/description tags. Stick it on the homepage, contact page, about us, etc. - otherwise focus on describing the intent of the page and let Google do its thing.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • CleverPhD
                CleverPhD last edited by

                Title tags - put your main keywords for the page first, or near the beginning.  That helps google know what the page is about.  The number of characters varies as Google does not look at characters per se, but pixel width.  Good article by Dr P.

                https://moz.com/blog/new-title-tag-guidelines-preview-tool

                You just have to watch what gets cut off at a certain point.  Beyond that length the title is getting too long for readability anyway and if you need a longer title to explain a page, just put the longer one in the H1, but try and be sensible.  If the client insists on putting the company name and you are not trying to rank for the company name just do something like

                Keyword and keyword is really key here because it ranks good! | Company Name

                The company name is at the end and will get hidden in the serps anyway, and you have your key word(s) or phrase in at the start.

                Meta description is about conversion and click through rate vs ranking.  Focus on getting the best call to action with a keyword somewhere in there first.  I would say, this could be a good place to sneak in the company name, after you get your call to action right.  Your limit is larger there (about 150-160) so you have more room before the cutoff.   I tend to worry less about keywords and think about searcher intent and see if I can match that to get them to select my page among others in the search result.  Another good article by Dr P

                https://moz.com/blog/i-cant-drive-155-meta-descriptions-in-2015

                Cheers!

                Dr-Pete 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                Browse Questions

                Explore more categories

                • Moz Tools

                  Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                • SEO Tactics

                  Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                • Community

                  Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                • Digital Marketing

                  Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                • Research & Trends

                  Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                • Support

                  Connect on product support and feature requests.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • Mosaj

                  Meta keywords

                  should every site have meta keywords or is this not used anymore? I don't use yoast and prefer rank math but there is nowhere to insert it. when I look at moz bar it shows meta keywords as a field so maybe it is important...

                  On-Page Optimization | | Mosaj
                  0
                • IcarusSEO

                  Should I include my company entity in meta description? (for ex. LLC. Inc.)

                  I'm re-writing my meta descriptions. I'm wondering if I should include the My Company, LLC. in the description or just My Company. Taking out the entity would save about 4 characters.

                  On-Page Optimization | | IcarusSEO
                  1
                • jeeyer

                  Duplicate page titles and Content in Woocommerce

                  Hi Guys, I'm new to Moz and really liking it so far!
                  I run a eCommerce site on Wordpress + WooCommerce and ofcourse use Yoast for SEO optimalisation I've got a question about my first Crawl report which showed over 600 issues! 😐 I've read that this is something that happens more often (http://moz.com/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success). Most of them are categorized under:
                  1. Duplicate Page Titles or;
                  2. Duplicate Page Content. Duplicate Page Titles:
                  These are almost only: product category pages and product tags. Is this problem beeing solved by giving them the right SEO SERP? I see that a lot of categories don't have a proper SEO SERP set up in yoast! Do I need to add this to clear this issue, or do I need to change the actual Title? And how about the Product tags? Another point (bit more off-topic) I've read here:  http://moz.com/community/q/yoast-seo-plugin-to-index-or-not-to-index-categories  that it's advised to noindex/follow Categories and Tags but isn't that a wierd idea to do for a eCommerce site?! Duplicate Page Content:
                  Same goes here almost only Product Categories and product tags that are displayed as duplicate Page content! When I check the results I can click on a blue button for example "+ 17 duplicates" and that shows me (in this case 17 URLS) but they are not related to the fist in any way so not sure where to start here? Thanks for taking the time to help out!
                  Joost

                  On-Page Optimization | | jeeyer
                  0
                • dhanson24

                  H2's vs Meta description

                  in some of my serp results the h2's are showing up instead of the meta description. i have read that H2's arent really valid anymore. can someone clarify this for me?

                  On-Page Optimization | | dhanson24
                  0
                • ZaddleMarketing

                  Punctuation at the Start of Page Titles

                  one of my clients appears to be using an exclamation mark (e.g. "! Graphic Prints By Mirrorin - Fun Childrens Graphic Prints") and to be completely honest, I have no idea if this is bad practice or if it wont have any affect from an SEO point of view? Any help would be appreciated because it is site wide, therefore if it is an issue I would like to be able to get it sorted asap! Thanks

                  On-Page Optimization | | ZaddleMarketing
                  0
                • dawsonski

                  Do I need a Meta description for every page?

                  HI Guys, We have just developed a new website and I'm looking to add meta descriptions with relevant key words to the pages . As the site has over 80 pages it is quite an undertaking and i was wandering if pages, such as  the shopping cart  and FAQ's etc,  need meta  descriptions as well? Thanks in advance : ) Pete

                  On-Page Optimization | | dawsonski
                  0
                • PHDAustralia68

                  Missing meta descriptions on indexed pages, portfolio, tags, author and archive pages. I am using SEO all in one, any advice?

                  I am having a few problems that I can't seem to work out.....I am fairly new to this and can't seem to work out the following: Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂 1. I am missing alot of meta description tags. I have installed "All in One SEO" but there seems to be no options to add meta descriptions in portfolio posts. I have also written meta descriptions for 'tags' and whilst I can see them in WP they don't seem to be activated. 2. The blog has pages indexed by WP- called Part 2 (/page/2), Part 3 (/page/3) etc. How do I solve this issue of meta descriptions and indexed pages? 3. There is also a page for myself, the author, that has multiple indexes for all the blog posts I have written, and I can't edit these archives to add meta descriptions. This also applies to the month archives for the blog. 4. Also, SEOmoz tells me that I have too many links on my blog page (also indexed) and their consequent tags. This also applies to the author pages (myself ). How do I fix this? Thanks for your help 🙂 Regards Nadia

                  On-Page Optimization | | PHDAustralia68
                  0
                • MikeDelaCruz77

                  E-Commerce product pages that have multiple skus with unique pages.

                  Hey Guys, With the recent farm/panda update from google i'm at a cross roads as to how I should optimize product pages for a project i'm working on for a client. My client sells tires and one particular tire brand can have up to 15 models and each model can have up to 30 sizes. IE: 'Michelin Pilot Sport Cup' comes in 15 different sizes. Each size will have it's unique product page and description bringing me to my question. Should I use the same description on every size? I do plan on writting unique content for each tire model however i'm not sure if I should do it for every size. After all the tire model description is the same for every size, each size doesn't carry any unique characteristics that I can describe. Thanks in advance!

                  On-Page Optimization | | MikeDelaCruz77
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.