Title tag
Definition: A title tag is the HTML title element in a page's head that names the page; search engines use it as the main source for the clickable headline in results, and browsers show it in the tab.
Also called: title element, page title, SEO title, title link
Updated
A before-and-after example
<!-- Before -->
<title>Home | Services | Products | Acme Ltd | Best Plumber</title>
<!-- After -->
<title>Emergency Plumber in Leeds, 24/7 Call-Outs | Acme Plumbing</title>The first tells nobody what the page offers. The second names the service, the place and the brand, in that order, and would make sense on its own in a results page or a browser tab.
Google may rewrite it
Google says it generates title links automatically from several sources: the title element, the main visible heading, Open Graph titles, anchor text pointing to the page and other prominent text (Influencing your title links). It is more likely to replace yours when it is missing, empty, stuffed with keywords, identical across many pages or out of step with the page’s main heading.
Google does not set a character limit. Titles are cut off when they run out of space on the results page, which depends on the device and the width of the characters.
Writing titles that hold up
- Make each title unique, and describe what that specific page is about.
- Put the main topic near the start; it is the part that survives truncation.
- Add the brand at the end, separated by a dash or pipe, unless the page is the brand’s home page.
- Keep the title and the H1 broadly consistent, so Google has less reason to choose something else.
- Avoid boilerplate repeated across hundreds of pages, such as a long tagline after every title.
Our view: around 50 to 60 characters usually displays in full on desktop. Treat that as guidance for the important words, not a hard rule. The meta tag checker previews how a title is likely to display.