Title tags and meta descriptions

Two elements, two different jobs

The confusion in this area comes from treating the pair as one topic. They sit next to each other in the head and are edited in the same field of every CMS, but the engine does entirely different things with them.

Google can generate a title link from the title element, visible headings and other prominent text, while snippets are primarily generated from page content and may sometimes use the meta description. Write both as accurate summaries, not as controls that force a particular result.

Writing a title that survives

A title should name the page's topic in the words a searcher would actually use, and stay short enough not to be cut. The failure modes are more consistent than the successes.

• Front-loading the brand pushes the distinguishing words past the truncation point on every page.
• A template that produces the same title for fifty pages tells the engine those pages are interchangeable.
• Keyword repetition inside one title reads as spam to a person before it does to a machine.
• A title that describes the site rather than the page is a missed opportunity on every listing.

The useful discipline is that a title should still make sense read alone, out of context, in a list of ten competing results — because that is exactly the situation it exists for.

There is no fixed character limit

Google documents no hard length limit for either the title element or meta description. Title links and snippets are truncated as needed, typically to fit the device width, and Google may generate different text from other page content.

Fixed character counts are therefore an editorial convenience, not a Search requirement. Put the distinguishing information early, keep the wording concise, and review localized results on real devices instead of assuming one English character target works for every writing system.

Why Google rewrites your description

Google generates the snippet, and it uses your meta description when it judges it the best available summary for that query. When a different passage of the page answers the query more directly, it uses that instead — and this is usually the right call, because the description is written once while the queries are endless.

The realistic goal is not to prevent rewriting. It is to make your description the best answer often enough that it gets used for the queries you care about, and to ensure that when Google does improvise, the page gives it good material to improvise from.

The tags that do nothing, and the ones that do

Not every tag in the head earns its place. Google states plainly that it does not use the meta keywords tag, and has said so since 2009. Meanwhile a handful of others are genuinely load-bearing and get less attention than they deserve.