How long can a title tag be before Google rewrites or truncates it?
- Published November 6, 2026
- Linked from 3 answers
- In a cluster of 63
There is no length limit, and length on its own is not what triggers a rewrite. Google’s title link documentation says there is no limit on how long a title element can be, and that “the title link is truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width.” Truncation depends on the width of the screen and the characters, not on a character count; rewriting depends on whether the title describes the page well.
Truncation and rewriting are different things
| Truncation | Rewrite | |
|---|---|---|
| What happens | Google cuts the title and adds an ellipsis | Google shows different text in place of your title |
| What causes it | The title is wider than the space on the device | The title is judged a poor description of the page |
| Does length matter? | Yes, measured by display width | Indirectly: Google asks you to avoid unnecessarily long or verbose titles |
| Where to look | The live result on mobile and desktop | The live result compared with your title element |
The widely quoted figure of 50 to 60 characters is a rule of thumb for how much fits on one line of results, not a number Google publishes. Letters differ in width, so two titles with the same character count can be cut at different points, and a narrow phone screen cuts sooner than a desktop one.
Write titles that survive both
- Put the words that identify the page first, so the part that stays visible after a cut still says what the page is.
- Keep the title concise, because a long string of loosely related phrases invites both truncation and a rewrite.
- Count the site name if you add it to the title, since it takes space too.
- Check the live result, on a phone as well as a desktop, rather than trusting a character counter.
For what does cause rewrites, and how to reduce them, read why Google rewrites a title you carefully optimized. Two related pages pick up from here: where the brand name should sit in a title, and whether the meta keywords tag is still read by anything. A title can run long and still be used as written, as long as it describes the page accurately; it will simply be cut on the screens it does not fit.
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