Title Length Meta Description Length, whats a good length? Options

[ogormask]

I am wondering about the length of page titles and the meta description. I realize there is a character limit on both as to what would be seen but if you go beyond that number of characters does Google count this for anything?

[qwerty]

As you probably know, Yahoo will display more of both of those elements than Google will, but the general consensus out there seems to be that the title tag should be no more than 70 characters (G will only display up to 68, I believe), and the meta description should top out at about 155 characters. Yahoo actually specifies a maximum of 256 characters for the meta description, but that's much more than Google will display. If the meta description contributes to ranking at all, it ain't much, so I don't see the point in putting more there than what will show up on a Google SERP.

With the title, you can certainly go longer than 70 characters, although the W3C actually says you shouldn't go over 64 characters:

The title should ideally be less than 64 characters in length. That is, many applications will display document titles in window titles, menus, etc where there is only limited room. Whilst there is no limit on the length of a title (as it may be automatically generated from other data), information providers are warned that it may be truncated if long.

One thing I've found (although it's been a few years since I last tested it) is that the word count can matter. No matter how many characters I use, I've found that the first ten words seem to carry more weight than what comes after. I also try to put the more important words at the beginning of the title, no matter how many words and characters I use.

[Jill]

I realize there is a character limit on both as to what would be seen but if you go beyond that number of characters does Google count this for anything?

Yes, it can count for something. Don't worry about character length. Use the number of words you need to create a title that focuses on your keyword phrases while also inspiring clicks if it shows up in the search results. It's okay if it's cut off in the results, imo.

[ogormask]

The reason I asked about the meta description is because in the serps often the text shown for the result is verbatim what the meta description is but sometimes if the search was for a particular key word it seems Google sometimes returns text that matches that key word. I guess I was trying to figure out when exactly it does this or why. I assume its because the meta description didnt match anything for that key word so then it looks to the content of the most relevant page and returns the text around that. I guess I wondered if you had a longer meta description if it would help control what searchers saw in the results.

For titles I was wondering because I noticed a lot of my competition doesnt really have page titles or its a couple words. I thought I should really think about what words I put up there. I know I have decent key words but I thought maybe I should really think it over more. But is it really that significant? But I thought before I went through so much work trying to figure that out I should know what my target length is first before wasting so much time. But I honestly think its just fine the way it is now but I like the feedback.

Thanks again!

[Jill]

ogormask have you read my articles on the meta description tag?

[ogormask]

Reading it now. Thanks as always. There is so much info on this site. Its really my only source now. I like how you put myths to rest and dont accept wrong answers. So many other sites keep myth after myth perpetuated and then people walk away with a wrong answer. Thats simply not the case here. Sure some topics are debatable but the ones that arent simply arent debated its a clear cut answer.

[Jill]

Glad you noticed! That is definitely our thing here. While there are certainly differences of opinion on some SEO stuff, we (the moderators at least) have the same basic thoughts on SEO and we try to make sure that the forum reflects that. If people post there other theories, that's fine, but we will still always try to point people to our ways which we know for a fact works. In fact, our way has always worked and I suspect always will!

[ogormask]

Hah. Yeah I have a feeling they will work a long time as well. A lot of places just accept bad information or misinformation. I can't stand it.