SEO finding
The title is too short, too wide, a copy of another element, or only a URL or site name
SEO Warning Severity: Medium
Part of the audit Title tag. Finding id: seo.titleQuality.
What it costs you
The title is the headline of your search result. A title that says little gets fewer clicks.
What to do
Write a title that names what this page is about, most important words first, and that fits in [title max px] pixels.
What it checks
- Title too short to be useful
- Too long to show in search results
- Title repeats the main heading or description
- Title is just a URL or site name
How to fix it
Rewrite the title, or fix the template that builds it
- Check the template_id of the pages found. When many share one template, change the template instead of each page.
- Build the title from the page's own name first, then the section or site name.
- Keep it at or above [title min chars] characters and within [title max px] pixels.
How to check: Recrawl the site and run this rule again.
A real case
Researchers at Zyppy compared 80,959 title tags on 2,370 sites with Google's results in early 2022 and found that Google showed its own rewrite for 61.6% of them. Titles that matched the page's H1 were rewritten less often.
Thresholds
| Name | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
title_min_chars | 20 | Titles with fewer characters than this are reported as too short. |
title_max_px | 580 | Widest title in pixels that we expect to fit on one line of a desktop search result. Search engines publish no limit; this is our estimate. |