Google has no limit on title or meta description length

Google's title link guide says there's no limit on how long a title element can be. Its snippet guide covers meta descriptions and says "There's no limit on how long a meta description can be," then adds that the snippet is shortened as needed, typically to fit the device width. Neither guide gives a cutoff point. What decides is the width the text takes up on the device, not a fixed number of characters.

Length still matters even though there's no limit. Google shortens a title link as needed, typically to fit the device width, so a shorter title is more likely to show in full. The same number of characters can fit on one device and not on another, because letters differ in width and screens differ too. A character count is only a rough guide, but it's a useful one.

TechCompare's working ranges are 50 to 60 characters for a title and 110 to 160 for a description. They're the site's own ranges, not Google's. The counter on this page is set to 60, the top of the title range, and it's labeled a guideline because Google sets no length. To check a description, paste it into the full counter and change Maximum to 160.

A title or description is what you send to Google, not a guarantee of what appears. Google says it may choose different text for a title link. For the snippet, it primarily uses the content on the page and sometimes uses the meta description element, so the snippet is the part most likely to differ from what you wrote. Identical or similar descriptions on every page of a site aren't helpful when individual pages appear in search results, so write one for each page.

The counter counts characters. It doesn't measure pixels or rendered width, so it can't tell you whether a title will be cut, and it doesn't preview how a result looks in search. Once the page is live, search for its topic and look at the result Google actually shows.