Title Tags and Meta Descriptions: What Google Actually Says

Every search result shows two lines of text you can influence: the title and the short description beneath it. They are among the cheapest things on a website to improve, and among the most misunderstood. This guide sticks to what Google’s own documentation says, as we read it on 14 October 2026, and marks clearly where we are giving our own advice.

What title tags and meta descriptions are

A title tag is the <title> element in a page’s HTML. Google calls the clickable title in a search result the title link, and says it is “often the primary piece of information people use to decide which result to click.” A meta description is a <meta name="description"> tag, and the text shown under the title is called the snippet.

Google may not show exactly what you wrote

For title links, Google says it uses several sources: the title element, the main visual title on the page, heading elements such as the h1, og:title tags, other large and prominent text, anchor text, text in links that point to the page, and WebSite structured data. If it detects a problem with your title element, it may build a better title link from those other sources.

Snippets work in a similar way. Google says it “primarily uses the content on the page to automatically determine the appropriate snippet” and may also use the meta description “when it describes the page better than other parts of the content.” It also says Google Search “might show different snippets for different searches.”

So treat your title and description as strong suggestions, and make sure the page itself says the same thing clearly.

The length myth

You will see “60 characters for titles and 160 for descriptions” almost everywhere. Google’s documentation does not set those limits. It says there is no limit on how long a title element can be, but the title link “is truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width.” For descriptions: “There’s no limit on how long a meta description can be, but the snippet is truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width.”

So the useful rule is to put the important words first, because a narrow phone screen cuts off the end. Google also advises avoiding “unnecessarily long or verbose text” in titles. On this site we keep titles within 60 characters and descriptions within 160, but that is our own habit to reduce cut-offs, not a Google rule.

How to write a good title

These points follow Google’s best practices for title links:

• Give every page its own title in the title element.
• Be descriptive and concise. Google says to avoid vague descriptors such as “Home” for your home page.
• Avoid keyword stuffing. Google’s example of a stuffed title is “Foobar, foo bar, foobars, foo bars”, and it says this can “make your results look spammy to Google and to users.”
• Avoid repeated or boilerplate text. If every page has the same title, searchers cannot tell two of your pages apart.
• Brand concisely. Put your site name at the beginning or end, separated by a hyphen, colon or pipe, instead of a long slogan on every page.
• Make the main heading obvious, for example by putting the page’s main title in the first visible h1.
• Match the language of the page. Google says the title should use the same language and writing system as the page’s primary content.

Here is an illustration for a fictional business, “Example Villa”:

• Weak: “Home”
• Stuffed: “Villa Canggu, Bali villa, villa rental Canggu, cheap Bali villa”
• Better: “Private Villa with Pool in Canggu, Bali | Example Villa”

The better version says what the page offers and where, and puts the name at the end.

How to write a good meta description

Google’s snippet guide compares a good description to a pitch that convinces someone the page is what they are looking for. Its advice:

• Make it unique. Google says identical or similar descriptions on every page of a site “aren’t helpful when individual pages appear in search results.”
• Summarise the page, do not list keywords. Google’s weak example is a list of sewing supplies. Its better example is “Get everything you need to sew your next garment. Open Monday-Friday 8-5pm, located in the Fashion District.” For a local business, that means what you offer, where you are and when you are open.
• Do not make it too short. Google’s weak example is a two-word product name.
• Prioritise. Google says: “If you don’t have time to create a description for every single page, try to prioritize your content; at the very least, create a description for the critical URLs like your home page and popular pages.”

Our own advice: only promise what the page delivers.

Problems Google says it rewrites

Google’s documentation lists the most common title problems it adjusts for. Check your pages against this list:

• A half-empty title, such as one that begins with “| Site Name”.
• An obsolete title, such as one that says 2020 while the visible heading says 2021.
• An inaccurate title that does not reflect what the page is about.
• Repeated boilerplate across a series of pages, so they look identical in results.
• No clear main title, because several large headings carry the same weight.
• A title in a different language or writing system from the page.

If your pages appear with modified title links, Google’s advice is to check whether the page has one of these issues. If not, consider whether the title link in search results is a better fit for the query.

Where to change them in WordPress

Google notes that if you use a CMS such as WordPress, you might not need to edit HTML at all, because your CMS may have a search engine settings page or another way to set meta tags. In WordPress that is normally an SEO plugin such as Rank Math or Yoast SEO, with a title and description box on each page and post.

To see what a page actually sends, open it, use “View page source” in your browser and search for the title element.

After you change them

Google says it has to recrawl and reprocess the page to notice updates, “which may take a few days to a few weeks.” You can ask Google to recrawl a page in Search Console, which we explain in our Search Console guide.

Our suggestion is to start with your home page, your main service pages and the pages that already get impressions in the Performance report. Change a few at a time, note the date, and compare click-through rate over several weeks. If you are redesigning your site, keep your titles in mind too, as we explain in how to redesign a website without losing your SEO.

A five-minute audit

1. Open your five most important pages, view the source and read the title and description.
2. Ask whether each one says what the page offers, and where, in plain words.
3. Check that no two pages share a title or description.
4. Look for old years and dates, such as a “2024 price list” in a current title.
5. Check the language matches the page, which matters for bilingual sites (see does your Bali business need a multilingual website).

If the page is not showing in Google at all, the problem is not the title, so start with why your website is not showing on Google. If you would like a second pair of eyes on your pages, tell us about your business and see our SEO services.