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The first line a searcher reads from you
Visitors rarely see your title tag on the page itself, but they do in three other places: as the clickable headline above your result in Google, on their browser tab and as the name of a bookmark. For a searcher it is the first line they read from you, before they decide whether to click.
Google calls that clickable headline a title link and assembles it itself. The main source is your title tag, but Google also looks at the main title on the page, usually the H1, at other headings, at og:title (the title Facebook and LinkedIn show when someone shares your link), at prominent text and at the text of links pointing to your page. Google said in 2021 that the headline still came from the title tag more than 80 percent of the time.
Older than Google itself
The title is one of the oldest elements on the web. In his 1992 list of HTML tags, Tim Berners-Lee wrote that the title should name the content in a wide context and ideally fit on one line. HTML 2.0 made it mandatory in every document in November 1995, with strikingly modern advice: titles may be truncated, keep them under 64 characters. Google first went well beyond the title tag around 2012, and in August 2021 it launched a new system that looks more at what a visitor sees on the page. The title tag is still the source that wins most often.
What fits on one line and what Google cuts
cut near 600 px
A · 169 pxfits, says nothing
Home | Your brand
B · 523 pxshown in full
Heat pump in Utrecht | Quote within 48 hours | Your brand
C · 623 pxbrand cut off
Heat pump installation in Utrecht | Quote within 48 hours | Your …
D · 840 pxbenefit lost
Heat pump installation in Utrecht, Zeist and Nieuwegein by …
Pixels count, not characters
Google says there is no limit: a title is cut until it fits the screen. In practice the line sits near 600 pixels, and it is pixels that count, not characters. A W is three times as wide as an i, so two titles of 60 characters may fit one time and not the next.
Take an installer near Utrecht who wants to be found for heat pumps. Four versions of the title of his service page, measured the way our SERP preview tool measures:
| Version | Characters | Pixels | What Google shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| A. Home plus brand | 17 | about 170 | Fits, but says nothing; Google often picks its own title |
| B. Search term, benefit, brand | 57 | about 520 | All of it |
| C. Same, with installation added | 70 | about 620 | The brand drops off, the rest stays |
| D. Everything in, with three towns | 95 | about 840 | Cut after the third town, the benefit is gone |
Version C shows why order matters, and why the meta description underneath should not repeat the title. If the end drops off, you would rather lose your brand, because Google usually shows your site name separately above the result. Lose your search term or your benefit and you lose the click.
Why Google sometimes replaces your title
Google replaces a title when it describes the page badly. The reasons are in Google's own documentation:
| What is wrong | Example | What Google does |
|---|---|---|
| Half-empty title | Only a separator and the brand, no subject | Takes a subject from the page heading |
| Obsolete title | Grants 2024 on a page about 2026 | Takes the year from the visible heading |
| Title does not match the page | A title about Munich on a page about Vienna | Picks text that does match |
| Nearly the same title everywhere | 40 service pages with one title | Adds details from the headings |
| No clear main title | Three headings of equal size | Picks one itself |
| Language differs from the page | An English title on a German page | Looks for a title in the page's language |
That last one bites multilingual sites in Europe. A shop that translates its pages but forgets the titles serves an English title on its French pages, and Google rewrites them. Every language version needs its own title, written on the term people use in that market; that is how we build multilingual websites. And do not repeat your search term three times: Google reads that as keyword stuffing. Each title belongs to its own search intent; two pages with the same title compete with each other.
Two titles on one page, each with its own job
They are about the same thing, but sit in a different place and speak to a different reader.
- Where it sits
- Title tagIn the head, invisible on the page
- H1At the top of the page, the largest heading
- Who reads it
- Title tagThe searcher in Google, before the click
- H1The visitor already on your page
- Length
- Title tagNear 600 pixels, then cut
- H1As long as your design allows
- Brand
- Title tagAt the end, or gone when space is tight
- H1Usually not needed
- What Google does with it
- Title tagThe first source for the clickable headline
- H1A fallback when the title tag falls short
Let them say the same thing, not the same words: the title tag may carry a benefit and your brand, the H1 addresses the visitor.
Five minutes of work, the first click
Changing a title tag costs nothing but time: in WordPress it is a field in your SEO plugin, on a custom site a line in the code. The work is choosing the search term per page. Allow ten minutes a page once you know what you want to be found for: a 40-page site is about seven hours, times the number of languages. If you do not know that yet, start with search volume and intent. What an outside specialist charges for it is in SEO specialist hourly rate.
You measure the return for free in Google Search Console: impressions and clicks per page. Put four weeks before and four weeks after the change side by side. Google says a new title shows after a few days to a few weeks, once the page has been revisited. The title decides part of the click; the line under it does the rest, which is what the meta description is for. To see how your page looks to Google now, the SEO checker puts title, description and H1 side by side.
Questions on length and rewrites
Is a title tag the same as a meta title?
Yes. Meta title and SEO title are other names for the same title element in the head. Strictly it is not a meta tag, but SEO plugins put the field next to the meta description, hence the name.
How many characters can a title tag have?
There is no fixed character limit. Google cuts at the width of the screen, in practice near 600 pixels: usually 50 to 60 characters. A title with wide letters such as W and M is cut sooner than one with narrow letters.
Why does Google show a different title than my title tag?
Because Google thinks your title tag describes the page badly: too generic, out of date, in another language or nearly the same as your other titles. Google then uses your H1, another heading or link text. Make the title tag specific and keep it in line with your H1.
Should my company name be in the title tag?
At the end, yes; at the start only when people search for your name, as on your home page. Google usually shows your site name separately, so the end is the first room you give up when a title runs long.
Do I need a different title tag for each language?
Yes. Each language version is its own page with its own title, written on the term people search in that market, not a word-for-word translation. Google rewrites a title that is in another language than the page.