Short answer: on desktop, Google cuts title tags that are wider than about 622 pixels. It cuts meta descriptions after about 160 characters. On a phone, the title gets 2 lines and the description gets 3. We measured all of this on live Google pages on November 11, 2026.
How to use the SERP preview tool
Type your title and meta description, and the preview changes as you go. The bars under each box turn amber near the limit and red when Google would cut the text.
- Paste your title tag into the first box. Pasted HTML codes like
&are turned into the real characters. - Paste your meta description into the second box.
- Add the page URL and your site name. Google shows both above the title.
- Add the search you want to rank for. Matching words turn bold in the description.
- Switch between Desktop and Mobile. On Mobile, pick the phone width you care about.
- Read the checks, fix what is red or amber, then click Copy HTML tags to get code you can paste into your page.
How Google shows a search result in 2026
On November 11, 2026, we fetched 37 live Google results pages as raw HTML. That was 29 on desktop and 8 on mobile, all in US English. We opened each page in Chrome with Google's own style sheet and fonts. Then we measured every result.
| Part | Desktop | Mobile |
|---|---|---|
| Site name | Google Sans, 14 px | Roboto, 14 px |
| URL line | Roboto, 12 px, path shown as breadcrumbs | Roboto, 12 px, domain only |
| Title | Google Sans, 22 px, 1 line | Google Sans Flex, 22 px, up to 2 lines |
| Description | Roboto, 14 px, up to 2 lines, 652 px wide | Roboto, 14 px, up to 3 lines |
The big change is the title font. Google Sans at 22 px is about 11% wider than Arial at 20 px, the font many older tools still use. So a title that passes an old 600 pixel check can still get cut today. The site name and URL now sit above the title, next to a round icon.
This tool does not guess. It holds the width of every letter in Google's real fonts, as Chrome drew them. On the titles in our sample, its widths were within half a pixel of Chrome's.
Recommended title and meta description length
| Text | Aim for | Google cuts at | What we saw on Nov 11, 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desktop title | Up to 600 px | About 622 px | A 619 px title tag was shown whole. A 626 px one was cut. 39 of 234 titles had dots. |
| Mobile title | 1 or 2 lines | After 2 lines | At 390 px wide, 6 of 51 titles needed a third line and lost their end. |
| Description | 120 to 155 characters | About 160 characters | Google kept 157 characters in the middle case and 150 to 160 in most. |
Titles are cut by width. We traced 9 long titles back to their pages and read the real title tags. Google showed the title tag for 6 of them. On desktop it kept whole words, added a space and three dots, and stayed under about 622 px. For 5 of those 6, this tool shows the exact title Google showed. Titles that Google writes itself, from a heading or a forum post, ran wider, up to 647 px.
In Google's title font, a capital W is about 4 times as wide as a small i. That is why a character count is only a rough guide for titles. On phones, the title wraps onto 2 lines, and the end of a longer one turns into dots.
Descriptions are cut by length. In 120 cut desktop descriptions, the kept text varied less in characters than in pixels. So we use about 160 characters, then check that the text fits in 2 lines on desktop and 3 lines on a phone. If Google shows a date, it uses part of the 160. We suggest 120 to 155 characters. That uses most of the space and still fits if Google cuts a little early. Google also added a "Read more" link after 105 of 201 desktop snippets. You cannot turn that link on or off.
Why Google rewrites your title and description
Your title tag is a strong hint, not an order. Google says it builds title links from the title tag, the main heading, other big text on the page, link text and more. It says there is no limit on title length, and it cuts titles to fit the screen. For snippets, Google says it mostly uses page content. It uses your meta description when that describes the page better.
Google lists the title problems that make it pick other text:
- Titles that are half empty or out of date
- Titles that do not match the page, or use a different language than the page
- The same boilerplate on many pages, or the site name repeated in the title
- Pages with no clear main title
It happens a lot. A 2022 study by Zyppy checked 80,959 titles on 2,370 sites and found Google changed 61.6% of them. Titles of 51 to 60 characters were changed the least, at 39% to 42%. Titles over 70 characters were changed 99.9% of the time. An Ahrefs study from 2020 found Google rewrote meta descriptions 62.78% of the time.
We saw this in our own checks too. For 3 of the 9 long titles we traced, Google did not show the title tag. It showed the page heading, or it added the site name to the end. One of those headings was cut earlier than the usual width rule.
Descriptions were rewritten even more. We read the meta descriptions of 7 of those pages. For 6 of them, Google showed other text from the page that matched the search better. For the seventh, it began with the meta description and then jumped to text from further down the page. So write a good description, but expect Google to swap it on some searches.
Tips for titles and descriptions that earn clicks
- Lead with the words people search. The start of a title gets read most, and it is the part that survives a cut.
- Make one clear promise. Say what the page gives: a price, a number of steps, a free tool. Only promise what the page has.
- Write a new description for every page. Google says the same description on many pages does not help.
- Use the keyword once in the description. Google bolds matching words, which helps your result stand out.
- Skip all caps and repeated words. They are hard to read and waste space.
- Check the result. After a change, compare clicks and impressions with our CTR calculator, and see what counts as a good organic CTR for your position.
- Test it on real searches. Our SEO traffic sends Google searches and clicks on your result for the keyword you pick, so you can run a controlled CTR test of a new title.
Have many pages to watch? Our SERP API returns the title, description and breadcrumb Google really shows for any keyword as JSON. That makes rewrites easy to spot.
Limits of this preview
- It shows US English Google as it looked on November 11, 2026. Google changes its design often, and we will update the numbers when it does.
- The desktop cut at 622 px comes from 6 real title tags. It sits between 619 and 626 px, and Google cut one of the 6 earlier than the rule says.
- Letters outside the Latin alphabet, and emoji, are measured with a fallback, so they are less exact.
- iPhones draw descriptions in Apple's own font, not Roboto, so their line breaks can differ a little.
- It shows a plain result. Stars, images and sitelinks are left out. Our guide to SERP features covers those.