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.
Title tag length
-
Hi,
I am fairly new to SEO and have just noticed the end of my title text has been cut off by Google in the serps results.
Everything i have read tells me titles should be maximum of 70 characters, however, Google is only displaying 54. See below
Security systems | wireless | battery powered | Police...
Nobody else on the page is showing more than 54 characters.
Am i missing something obvious?
Any and all help gratefully appreciated.
Thanks
Si
-
Hi Jesse,
I will keep you appraised.
Thank you for your support.
Regards,
Si
-
Well I don't know anything about this "SEO College Tutor" but it sounds fishy to me.
You can have the "key info" in the title and still have it be readable. Also, at the very least you should take me up on my suggestions for capitalization. It currently looks like it was written by a 5th grader. No offense. But you capitalize the first few words, stop doing it, and then go back to capitalizing at the end. Looks amateurish and reads horribly. At the very least fix that.
I'd encourage you to grab some impartial observers (a mom, gramma, aunt, uncle, somebody not good with computers you happen to know) and ask them to look at the SERPs you are targeting and choose a site to visit. Or maybe even ask them to run some random searches and watch how they react to SERPs and what pages they choose to click on. I think that you will find the title tag to be the difference maker (beyond placement of course). What you are doing is stuffing keywords to encourage placement in the top of the SERPs. That's what the "SEO tutor" is having you do. That is not necessarily going to work. There are plenty of ways to rank well and still have an attractive title for your end-user.
I've seen it work both ways. I've seen a page sit at number 1 for the desired keyword results and get no clicks. Why? Only answer I have was a terrible Title.
I'm glad you are going to test both methods. That's a great way to approach things.
Keep in mind with your SEO Tutor.. You need to take every factor into account with SEO. There is no perfect way of doing things. My way isn't perfect, their way isn't perfect. You need to find your own truths somewhere in between. You seem to be working towards that so you should be alright.
But boy I have to say my gut tells me that this alleged Tutor has a few things mixed up...
-
Hi Jesse,
Thank you for your reply. I am getting real people like you telling me one thing and the SEO college tutor telling me another. Personally i can see benefits in both. I like to see the key information in the title like it is at the moment. My other side that refuses to use text speak and enjoys the written word likes a flowing title.
I am going to leave it until this time next week, collect the analytics and then change style and repeat for a week and see what works best.
Have a good weekend and i always appreciate advice.
Si
-
I know I've told you this before and I'm becoming the Title-Tag Police around here but you can do so much better with that. There are several things that drive me crazy from a users' perspective with your title:
1.) Keyword stuffed.. Seems like a robot wrote it; not human
2.) Capitalization. Sometimes you capitalize the first letters like a title would and sometimes you don't. This inconsistency makes your page look amateurish and drives my OCD grammar-police brain crazy!
Just trying to help... Good luck!
-
Dear William and Mike,
Excellent answer guys, thank you so much. Considering how much a truncated title could screw it up, i'm surprised this is not more widely known. Especially by the 'expert' tutor at SEO College.
Have a great weekend both.
Si
-
Dear William and Mike,
Excellent answer guys, thank you so much. Considering how much a truncated title could screw it up, i'm surprised this is not more widely known. Especially by the 'expert' tutor at SEO College.
Have a great weekend both.
Si
-
Your full title, Security systems | wireless | battery powered | Police Approved | CSS, winds up truncated because its 69 characters with spaces and features a few wide letters (like those W's) that make it too long pixel-wise (as William pointed out).
-
Title tags may vary. And could be anywhere from ~50 through ~70. It is measured by pixels.
http://www.highervisibility.com/blog/title-tags-are-measured-by-pixels-not-by-characters/
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
Using a hyphen in title tags and the impact of spaces
Hi I am trying to arrive at a best practice template for a title tag for my organization so does the following template still holds Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword | Brand Name will anything be impacted if I eliminate the spaces between the hyphen, will search bots be still able to treat the first one as a priority and the second as the secondary? Primary Keyword-Secondary Keyword | Brand Name thank you
On-Page Optimization | | lina_digital0 -
Page Title Length
Hi Gurus, I understand that it is a good practice is to use 50-60 characters for the a page title length. Google appends my brand name to the end of each title (15 characters including spaces) it index. Do I need to count what google adds as part of the maximum recommended length? i.e.
On-Page Optimization | | SunnyMay
is the maximum 50-60 characters + the 15 characters brand name Google adds to the end of the title or 50-60 including the addition? Many thanks!
Lev0 -
Q&A Page Titles
Hello All! I am currently updating page titles and metadata descriptions for a websites Q&A section and have run in to a problem while updating page titles. Since it is the Q&A section of the website, all of the page titles are around 100 characters and some are up to 200 characters long. Here is an example: Page Title: My child is working below grade level in math. Do I have to purchase the curriculum from the grade below as well? The problem is that this is obviously too long for a SERP to display however I know it is best practice to have matching titles on both the title tag and page title. My question is what hurts SEO value more: the title tag and title of the page not matching or having a very long title displayed on the SERP?
On-Page Optimization | | Myles921 -
Should I Use WooCommerce Tags & Attributes?
I'm helping an online furniture store search engine optimize a WooCommerce store and I'm trying to make sure our taxonomies make sense. I'd love any help you guys can give, but I'm particularly interested in determining whether we should use tags. Product attributes make sense to me, but I'm concerned to use tags because of the propensity for creating duplicate content. Thanks in advance for any help you guys are willing to give.
On-Page Optimization | | cbizzle0 -
How does Google treat Dynamic Titles?
Let's say my website can be accessed in only 3 states Colorado, Arizona and Ohio. I want to display different information to each visitor based on where they are located. For this I would also like the title to change based on their location. Not quite sure how Google we treat the title and rank the site.... Any resources you can provide would be helpful. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Firestarter-SEO0 -
Different title tags and meta descriptions for desktop and mobile?
Is it possible to use different title tags and meta descriptions for mobile users? For Example: In the SERP for desktop you'll see the desktop title tags and meta descriptions, but in the SERP for mobile you'll the mobile versions of the webpage.
On-Page Optimization | | alex19780 -
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 | | ZaddleMarketing0 -
Hey guys! I was looking at adding the H1 tag lower on the page than the H2 tag because I want the top bit to be a call to action. Is this proper practice?
Hey guys! I was looking at adding the H1 tag lower on the page than the H2 tag because I want the top bit to be a call to action. Is this proper practice?
On-Page Optimization | | Web3Marketing870
