Free Meta Title & Description Checker

Why pixels, not characters

Nearly every meta checker reports a character count and calls a title too long past 60. Google does not truncate on characters — it truncates when the rendered text runs out of container width. Two titles of identical length can have very different fates.

"WWW MARKETING GROUP LIMITED" and "illiterate in lilliput" are both 22 characters. In Google's SERP font the first is roughly twice as wide as the second, and only one of them survives. A character count calls them equivalent and is wrong about both.

The character equivalents in the last column are averages for mixed-case English, which is exactly why they are unreliable: a Danish title full of wide letters, an ALL-CAPS brand suffix, or a headline heavy in W and M will hit the pixel limit well before the character count suggests. The tool above measures the actual width.

Google rewrites most descriptions anyway. Write one regardless.

Google replaces the meta description with its own snippet on the majority of queries, picking whatever passage it thinks best matches the search. People take this as a reason to skip the field. That is the wrong conclusion.

A written description is still used verbatim often enough to matter, it sets the baseline Google rewrites from, and it is what appears when your link is shared outside search. Leaving it empty simply hands the decision away — Google then lifts whatever text it finds first, which is frequently navigation copy or a cookie notice.

Why are Meta Tags Important?

Meta titles and descriptions are the first impression users have of your site in search results. A well-crafted title and description can significantly improve your click-through rate (CTR).

One clarification worth being precise about: the meta description is not a ranking factor, and Google has said so repeatedly. The title tag is a genuine relevance signal; the description is a click-through signal. Both matter, for different reasons, and conflating them leads to a lot of wasted effort.

Best Practices

• Keep titles between 30-60 characters and descriptions between 120-160 characters.
• Include your primary keyword near the beginning of the title.
• Ensure every page has a unique title and description.
• Front-load the important words. If the text is cut, the cut happens at the end.
• Match the intent behind the query, not just the wording. A product page that ranks for a how-to search loses the click regardless of its title.
• Put the brand at the end of the title, not the start — a brand prefix spends your most visible pixels on something the searcher already knows.

Common Meta Tag Mistakes

• Title too long: Titles over 60 characters get cut off in search results, losing important information.
• Duplicate meta tags: Each page should have unique titles and descriptions to avoid confusion.
• Keyword stuffing: Overloading keywords makes your content unreadable and may harm rankings.
• Missing descriptions: Empty meta descriptions miss the chance to improve click-through rates.
• Not matching content: Meta tags should accurately reflect what's on the page.

Impact on Click-Through Rate

Your meta title and description are the first impression users get of your page in search results. Compelling, accurate titles and descriptions can increase your CTR by 20-30%, directly improving organic traffic.

For Social Media Sharing

Meta tags are also used when your content is shared on social platforms. Well-crafted meta tags ensure your posts look professional and engaging across all channels.

Checking more than one page

Duplicate titles and descriptions are a site-wide problem, and they are invisible one URL at a time — a templated category page looks fine on its own and is identical to forty others. A full Sitecheck scan crawls your sitemap and reports duplicates, missing fields, and truncation across every page at once, alongside performance, accessibility and security.

For the wider picture, see our guide to title tags and meta descriptions. How pages get crawled and indexed in the first place is covered in technical SEO.