There's no official limit, but there is a practical one
Google doesn't publish a fixed character cutoff, because it truncates based on pixel width, not character count — a title full of narrow letters (i, l, t) fits more characters than one full of wide letters (W, M, O) before it gets cut off. In practice, staying under roughly 55–60 characters keeps almost any title from truncating on desktop search results.
What happens when you go over
Google doesn't just chop the end off with an ellipsis and move on. It sometimes rewrites the visible snippet entirely, pulling a different string from the page's headings or content instead of your <title> tag. Writing tight, deliberate titles is partly about truncation and partly about not handing Google a reason to override what you wrote.
Where to spend the characters
- Put the specific, searched-for term first, not the brand name. "Free Online Word Counter" beats "Web Tools Centre — Word Counter Tool" for someone searching "word counter."
- Save the brand name for the end, after a separator, where it still shows for recognition without competing for the front of the string.
- Avoid repeating the same keyword twice in one title; it does not help relevance and it wastes characters.
Checking before you publish
Character count alone is not the full picture, since actual display width depends on the specific letters used. The SERP Snippet Preview renders your title and description the way Google typically displays them, so you can see whether a title truncates before it goes live.
Titles and meta descriptions are different jobs
Meta descriptions have more room, roughly 155–160 characters before truncation, and do not directly influence ranking, but they do influence click-through. Think of the title as the headline and the description as the one-line pitch underneath it. The Meta Description Generator and SEO Title Generator are built for exactly that split.
Quick FAQ
Does a shorter title rank better than a longer one?
Not directly. Title length is not a ranking factor by itself. The benefit of a shorter, tighter title is that it displays fully and reads clearly in search results, which affects click-through rate rather than ranking position.
Why did Google show a different title than the one I wrote?
Google sometimes rewrites the displayed title when it judges the original to be too long, keyword-stuffed, or a poor match for the query, usually pulling from an H1 or other on-page text instead. Writing a concise, accurate title tag reduces how often this happens.
Should every page on a site have the exact same brand suffix?
Yes, that is normal and expected. A consistent brand name at the end of every title is a best practice, not a duplicate-content issue, as long as the part before it is unique per page.