Title too long issue means that title tag length on some pages is longer than 65 characters.
Why it is Important
Having a longer title isn’t catastrophic since it is not associated with page ranking penalties. What search engines do with titles longer than 65 characters is to simply ignore any text above this limit, while also truncating it to around 70 characters on the SERP snippet.
The exact length at which different search engines truncate varies – for instance, Google will do this at approximately 70 characters (earlier than other search engines). Hence, when writing titles, it is good to adopt this figure as the upper limit, to ensure that titles are displayed in full across various search engines.
Obviously, including important keywords after the 70 character limit must be avoided since they will be simply ignored. In fact, it is advisable to respect this limit in all scenarios, since this will ensure that no truncation happens and users see your titles exactly as you write them.
How to Check the Issue
Access to the source code is needed to locate and fix the issue. You could view the source code with this online tool or by using your browser. For instance, right-click on a neutral region in the Chrome browser and select to view the page source from the context menu.
Once done, search for <title> in the head of the HTML document.
To make this process smoother, use Sitechecker. Run a full audit that will identify all pages with titles that are too long.
Additionally, you will receive a list of affected pages and the ability to view their source code.
How to Fix the Issue
Shorten titles to under 65 symbols, at least on the most important pages or on pages where important keywords appear past the 70 character limit.
When writing good titles, several rules should be followed:
- The length should be within 40-70 characters.
- The most important keywords should appear as early as possible (leftmost location).
- By contrast, brand names or the name of the site should be mentioned at the very end, so that, if the title gets truncated, it would have a minimal impact.
- Instead of just listing keywords, naturally sounding and easily readable titles should be written.
- Each title should be unique.
- For large sites, it is common practice to employ automatic template-based title generation aided by specialized software. In this case, it is important to closely watch the output of such software and to ensure that the tiles make sense, are relevant, and readable.
Check your website for long title tags
Audit your website to detect pages that have too long title tags
