Title and meta description checker

Google rewrites about 6 in 10 titles and descriptions

That is the number to keep in mind before you polish a title for an hour. Zyppy checked 80,959 titles on 2,370 sites in early 2022 and found Google showed a different title for 61.6% of them. Ahrefs found Google rewrote 62.78% of meta descriptions in 2020. Google's own figure is kinder: in September 2021 it said it uses the title element about 87% of the time.

The studies disagree on the rate. They agree on the cause: Google replaces text that does not describe the page well enough for the search. A character count does not fix that. Write a title and description Google has no reason to replace.

Measure width in pixels, not characters

Google's title link guide says "there's no limit on how long a title element can be". The title is "truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width". Width depends on the letters. Sixty lowercase i's are about 270 pixels wide at Google's title size. Sixty capital W's are over 1,100.

These are the widths the checker uses. Nobody outside Google knows the exact figure: published measurements put the desktop title between 580 and 600 pixels and the mobile description anywhere from 680 to 985. Treat the line as a guide and keep the important words well inside it.

Seven title problems that make Google write its own

Google lists these in its title link guide. The checker flags the ones it can see from one page.

• Missing or empty. No title, or <title></title>. Google builds one from the headings and links.
• Half empty. <title> | Site Name</title>, where a template field printed nothing.
• Too long. Zyppy saw titles over 70 characters rewritten 99.9% of the time.
• Keyword stuffing. The same word three times. Google says "there's no reason to have the same words or phrases appear multiple times".
• Boilerplate. Hundreds of titles that differ by one word, such as a city name.
• Out of date. "Best laptops 2024" on a page you updated in 2026.
• No clear main title. When the H1 says something else, Google often uses the H1. The checker flags a title and H1 that share no words.

Missing, empty and blocked descriptions are three problems

Most checkers say "no description" for all three. The fix is different for each, so this one keeps them apart.

A good description does not stop a rewrite. Ahrefs found Google rewrote 61.46% of too-long descriptions and 63.69% of the rest, so length barely changed the odds. Google picks text that matches each search, and a description that answers the main search is the one it keeps.

Write a title and description Google keeps

• Lead with the words people search for. Search Console shows them for every page.
• Match the H1. They do different jobs, but they should name the same thing.
• Give one true reason to click: free, a number, a date, a price.
• Make every title on the site different. Twenty pages called "Products" look the same in results.
• Cut stock marketing phrases that would fit any product. They say nothing about yours, and the checker flags them.

Rewrite titles from your own search data with your agent

Start with the titles people already see and skip. The SEO report lists the quick wins: pages ranking 4 to 10 for searches with real impressions. Your agent can read each page's own queries from Search Console, draft a new title and description from them, and check the words with seo lint before anything ships. Ask:

Find my quick wins for example.com, read the Search Console queries for each page, then write a new title and meta description for each and lint them with seo lint --preset meta

To check titles across a whole site, seo crawl lists every missing, empty, repeated and long title and description. Install the CLI and run setup:

npm i -g seo && seo start

Or add the hosted MCP server to your agent and sign in with Google:

Title and meta description questions