Google truncates titles and descriptions by rendered pixel width, not letter count. Type yours below and see exactly how it can appear in search — and where it gets cut.
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Limits, fonts and colours here are approximate and reverse-engineered — Google publishes no spec and adjusts truncation often. Treat every preview as “how it can appear”.
Drop in your title, meta description and URL — or fetch them live from any page with the URL button.
Counters turn amber, then red as you approach the truncation point. The preview shows the ellipsis exactly where Google would cut.
Grab copy-paste-ready meta tags from the Code tab, export a PNG/PDF for a client, or share a link that restores the exact preview.
The honest version of how search snippets really work.
“WWW Illinois” and “iii Hawaii” have the same character count but very different widths. Google truncates by the rendered width of your text in the font, size and weight it uses — so a character counter lies to you.
This tool measures the real width and warns you before the cut. Character count is shown too, but only as a secondary signal.
Title: ~50–60 characters / under ~580px, keyword front-loaded, dashes over pipes, aligned with your H1. Leave ~40–50px of headroom in case Google appends “– Brand”.
Description: ~120–160 characters; put the key message and call-to-action in the first ~120 so mobile users still see it. Make every one unique.
Google says it uses your HTML title about 87% of the time, but independent studies have found roughly 61% of titles rewritten (short or “Home”-type titles almost always; very long titles essentially always; the 51–60 character range is rewritten least).
Pipes get dropped or replaced far more often (~41%) than dashes (~20%) — so prefer dashes. Descriptions show the one you wrote only about 37% of the time.
Worth writing for branded and head queries — but frame everything as “how it can appear”.
Historically position 1 earned ~28% of clicks and the top three ~54%. But AI Overviews are associated with ~50–61% lower organic CTR on affected queries — while being cited inside the AI Overview is associated with ~35% higher CTR.
Ads, People Also Ask and featured snippets push your result further down.
These are sourced study findings, not promises — but they're why landing the snippet matters less than it used to, and clarity matters more.
FAQ rich results are now limited to authoritative government and health sites, and HowTo rich results were removed.
You can still mark up FAQs (it helps AI answer engines and is valid structured data), but don't expect FAQ snippets in Google for a typical business site. The tool's FAQ preview carries this warning so nobody plans around a result they won't get.
Google displays emoji selectively — it may strip them or truncate just before them, and what shows in titles barely overlaps with what shows in descriptions.
Monochrome marks (✓, ›, →) and a few emoji (🥇) survive more reliably than full-colour pictographs. The tool measures them and flags that display is never guaranteed.
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