Google does not set a character limit for page titles. Its documentation says there is no limit on how long a title element can be, and that the title link shown in search results is truncated as needed, typically to fit the device width. It gives no character count and does not mention pixels. The familiar figure of about 60 characters is a common guideline, worked out by third parties from watching where titles get cut off. It is useful as a sanity check and misleading as a target.

What Google's documentation says

The relevant page is Influencing title links on Google Search Central. Its one sentence about length reads:

"While there's no limit on how long a <title> element can be, the title link is truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width."

Three things are worth noticing, as of our reading on 7 October 2026:

  • The page gives no figure for length: no character count and no maximum.
  • The word "pixel" does not appear on it.
  • The only factor named is the width of the device, and even that is qualified with "typically".

Anything more specific than that comes from somewhere other than Google.

Why the space is about width, not count

A search result has a certain amount of horizontal room on a given screen. Like most text on the web, results are set in proportional fonts, where every letter has its own width, so how many letters fit in that room depends on which letters they are.

Here are three made-up titles. Each is exactly 40 characters long.

Title Width in Arial (narrowest = 1.00)
Fitting a little tile trim: initial tips 1.00
Women Who Mow: Summer Lawn Mower Reviews 1.63
WOMEN WHO MOW: SUMMER LAWN MOWER REVIEWS 1.94

You can see the difference in the table itself. The widths were worked out by adding up the width of each letter as defined in the Arial font file, ignoring kerning. Arial is used only because it is widely installed; this says nothing about the font any search engine uses. The ratios shift from one typeface to another, but the effect is the same in all of them. In Arial a capital W is more than four times as wide as a lower-case i or l.

The practical meaning: a slot just wide enough for the first title would show only about half of the third, although a character counter reports the same number for both.

Character counts carry over even less well to scripts with wider characters. Google Ads, a product that does enforce character limits, counts each character of "a double width language like Korean, Japanese, or Chinese" as 2.

Where the usual character figure comes from

Not from Google. The figure is a rule of thumb that SEO guides and tools arrived at by observing where titles were cut off in results for ordinary English text. It is expressed as a character count because characters are easy to count and widths are not.

Read it as an average for mixed-case English, and it is a reasonable one. It fails in both directions for text that is not average. A title in capitals, or one heavy with wide letters such as m and w, can be cut well before the guideline. A title of narrow letters can run past it and still be shown in full.

Pixel widths are sometimes quoted as the "real" limit. They are closer to the mechanism, since width is what matters, but they are the same kind of thing: a measurement someone took of one results layout, in one font, on one type of device, at one point in time. Google publishes no such figure, its page does not use the word, and the layout is Google's to change. We do not quote a pixel number here, because there is no official one to quote.

This is why our Character Counter labels the title preset "Common guideline" and never calls it a Google limit.

What Google does document about titles

The same page is specific about what makes a good title, and none of it is about counting. In summary:

  • Give every page a title element.
  • "Write descriptive and concise text", and avoid vague labels such as "Home" or "Profile".
  • Avoid "unnecessarily long or verbose text".
  • Avoid keyword stuffing. In Google's words, "there's no reason to have the same words or phrases appear multiple times".
  • Avoid repeated or boilerplate titles. Each page needs distinct text, and Google also objects to long titles that vary from page to page by only a single piece of information.
  • Brand concisely. Google suggests putting the site name at the beginning or end, separated by a delimiter such as a hyphen, colon or pipe.
  • Write the title in the same language and writing system as the page.
  • Make it obvious which text on the page is the main title.

Google also says plainly that it may not use your title. Title links are generated automatically from several sources: the title element, the main visual title on the page, heading elements, the og:title meta tag, other large and prominent text, other text on the page, anchor text, the text of links pointing to the page and WebSite structured data. Where it detects a problem, such as a half-empty, outdated, inaccurate or boilerplate title, Google says it "may try to generate an improved title link from anchors, on-page text, or other sources".

So length is only one of the reasons the title in a result can differ from the one you wrote.

A practical method

  1. Put the distinguishing words first. Truncation cuts from the end, so the opening words are the ones most likely to be shown. They should say what this page is and how it differs from its siblings.
  2. Put the site name last. Google allows either end. Our reasoning for the end is simple: if something is cut, it should be the part the searcher can do without.
  3. Remove filler. "Welcome to", "Home", "Official site" and stacked synonyms use room and tell the reader nothing.
  4. Use the count as a sanity check. Paste the title into the Character Counter and select the SEO title guideline under Check Against A Limit. Far over means the title is probably trying to do too much. A few characters either side of the guideline means nothing at all.
  5. Adjust for the letters. If the title has capitals throughout or a lot of wide letters, expect it to need more room than its count suggests.
  6. Do not chase the number. Swapping a clear word for a vague shorter one to save two characters is a bad trade. Padding a short, accurate title to reach the guideline is worse.
  7. Look at the real result. After Google has recrawled the page, which its documentation says "may take a few days to a few weeks", search for it and see what is shown.

A worked example, for an invented bakery. The first version is 90 characters:

Welcome to Harbor Lane Bakery | Home | Fresh Bread, Cakes, Pastries and Sourdough Delivery

The second is 50:

Sourdough Delivery in Bristol | Harbor Lane Bakery

The count is not the important difference. Cover everything after the first 30 characters of each. The first leaves "Welcome to Harbor Lane Bakery", which tells a searcher nothing about the page. The second leaves "Sourdough Delivery in Bristol", which is nearly the whole message. A title built that way loses very little wherever the cut falls, on any device, in any font.

Which number to use

None, as a limit. Use about 60 characters as a rough check that a title is not bloated, write it so the first half can stand alone, and judge the result by what appears in search. The same reasoning applies to descriptions, with one extra complication covered in the guide to meta description length. For help trimming a title that is carrying too much, see how to write clearly within a strict character limit.