It’s clearly stated that 60 to 65 characters (letters, spaces, and numbers) are the general range of what Google shows in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Titles longer than this will be shortened or entirely rewritten by Google.
The title tag popularly featured in the SERPs it’s pretty important to get it right in order to maximize clicks and traffic to your site.
Title tags have a tiny contribution as a ranking factor so you should pay attention to how the title might influence search rankings.
Is title tag length a ranking factor?
Google’s John Mueller answers questions about 65 character limit on title tags for SEO and if it’s ranking-related.
This was during a recent Google SEO Office-hours hangout about what the ideal length for a title tag is for SEO and ranking purposes.
The person asking the question had arguably a good reason to be concerned about the length.
This concerned person worked for a news organization with millions of articles that featured title tags that were generally over 65 characters each.
His concerns were on title tag length with the newsroom management who were subsequently not particularly elated with his recommendation to fix the title tags by shortening them all.
John Mueller answered:
“No. We don’t have any recommendation for the length of a title.”
Muelle pointed out that title tag length is an editorial choice and is all up to the publisher to decide and not a ranking-related SEO issue.
Mueller explained:
“So, I think kind of picking a number from your side and saying on mobile like this much room is available so as an editorial guideline we’ll say 65 or whatever you want to choose.
That’s perfectly fine.
From Google, from the …search quality, the ranking side we don’t have any guideline that says it should be this long.”
The person also followed up on his question by inquiring that if the length didn’t matter even when the title was too long, why is it that it never shows as a snippet in search results?
Would it be a ranking factor?
John Mueller shook his head and answered:
“No, no… the length doesn’t matter.
If we show something shorter or if we show something slightly different that’s just kind of how we display it in the search results, it doesn’t mean the ranking changes.”
The Best Length For A Title Tag
The ideal length appears to be the same as what a person would use for a heading, which is to use whatever is appropriate to describe what the reader expects to find.
