Preview your search snippet before you publish
The title and description Google shows in search results are your page’s ad in the SERP — they decide whether someone clicks your result or the one below it. A title that gets cut off mid-thought, or a description that ends in an ellipsis right before the point, costs clicks you’ve already earned with the ranking.
Type your SEO title, meta description, and URL into the form and the tool renders a Google-style desktop preview as you type, alongside character counts and truncation warnings.
Length guidelines
Google truncates by available pixel width, not by a fixed character count, so any character limit is an approximation. Working guidelines:
- Title: roughly 50–60 characters displays fully on desktop. Wide characters (W, M, capitals) eat the budget faster than narrow ones.
- Meta description: roughly 150–160 characters on desktop; mobile often shows less. Front-load the value — assume only the first sentence is guaranteed.
- URL: Google displays a breadcrumb-style path. Short, readable, hyphenated slugs look more trustworthy than parameter strings.
Writing snippets that earn the click
- Put the primary keyword near the front of the title — it gets bolded when it matches the query, and it survives truncation.
- Make the title a specific promise (“Sample size calculator for A/B tests”) rather than a label (“Tools | Calculator | Home”).
- Treat the description as ad copy: lead with the benefit, end with a reason to click. Pages with weak descriptions get whatever sentence Google extracts instead.
- Give every page a unique title and description. Duplicates waste the SERP real estate of both pages.
Frequently asked questions
Will Google always use my title and description?
No. Google rewrites titles it considers too long, keyword-stuffed, or mismatched with the page, and it frequently replaces descriptions with page text that better matches the specific query. A well-written, accurate, appropriately sized snippet is the best way to increase the odds yours is used.
Do title and description length affect rankings?
Length itself doesn’t. The title’s content is a ranking signal; the meta description is not — it affects click-through rate, which is the reason to invest in it. Truncation doesn’t hurt rankings either, just persuasion.
Why does my live snippet differ from this preview?
The preview models a typical desktop result. The live SERP varies with device, query (bolding, rewrites), and result features like sitelinks or dates. Treat the preview as a length-and-copy check, not a pixel-perfect promise.
Where do I set the title and meta description on my site?
In the page’s HTML head: the <title> element and <meta name="description"> tag. Every mainstream CMS exposes both — look for an “SEO” section in the page editor. After setting them, you can verify what’s actually rendered with the URL debugger or your browser’s view-source.