I run a Q&A site, should I limit post questions to 64 characters?

[10JQKAs]

I run a Q&A site (Recessionitis.com), should I limit posts (questions) to 64 characters for SEO purposes?

[KeriMorgret]

Yes, go ahead and ignore those warnings. There was another recent question about this and the help desk said they could be ignored.

The help desk generally doesn't just browse Q&A, as they keep busy enough with the help forums and the tickets submitted to them. If there is a problem that might be affecting a large number of users, then I'll flag a Q&A question and ask them to come and take a look at things.

[MarieHaynes]

I'm guessing you want to limit the question length because you want to create an appropriate title tag.  Why not have unlimited space for the question, but start off with a box saying, "Please summarize your question." and use that for the title?

[10JQKAs]

Thanks! We do have an additional details field.

One more question, in SEOmoz diagnostics, I'm getting warnings for "Title Element Too Long" because the crawler is rendering apostrophes as "'" adding 5 characters per apostrophe. Should I be ignoring those warnings?

[KeriMorgret]

Do the users have a chance for an expanded question beyond the 64 characters, or is that the proposed entire question limit? If that's the entire question limit, I would certainly say to not limit it so much.

The question at http://recessionitis.com/what-is-the-lowest-fare-roundtrip-to-atlanta-from-oakland-california/ is "What is the lowest round trip fare to Atlanta from Oakland, CA?", which is 63 characters. There's a response asking what dates, yet the OP never responded.

My gut says that by limiting the question so much you're going to limit the amount of information the person is able to give, and thus limit the amount of answer a person can give without knowing more detail, and you may never be able to get that detail out of the OP in time. Or, you'll have someone answer, only to have the OP come back and say "oh, but I don't want any layovers" or "I refuse to travel on airline xyz". You're still likely to get people who don't make complete questions, but I would say don't hamstring those who did want to give more information just because you don't want to trigger the "..." in the SERP.

[gmk1567]

That will improve user experience in the SERP and site may see more visits. Only very lengthy or short title will send wrong signals.