Content and snippets
Meta description and title checker
Grade a page's title and meta description before Google does: pixel width with the exact cut-off point, keyword placement, a reason to click, and the small mistakes that cost clicks.
Free · No signup · Runs in your browser
How it works
Paste a title and meta description, or enter a page address to pull the ones it has now.
Add the keyword you want the page found for, if you have one.
You get a score and a list of what passed, what's worth fixing and how, for the title and the description separately.
What this checker grades
The title tag and the meta description are the two lines you write for Google's results. This checker treats them as a pair and grades each one on its own:
- Whether it exists at all, and whether the page has more than one.
- Length in characters, against the usual ranges.
- Width in pixels on desktop and on mobile, with the exact text Google would show if it's cut.
- Whether your keyword is there, and how early it appears.
- Whether the description gives a reason to click.
- Whether the description just repeats the title.
- Capitals, repeated punctuation, stray HTML codes and straight double quotes.
Each finding says what we saw and what to do about it. The score at the top is a summary of those findings, not a prediction of rankings or clicks.
How long should a title and meta description be?
As a rule of thumb, titles of 30 to 60 characters and descriptions of 120 to 160 characters fit. But Google cuts by width, not by count. On desktop a title runs out at about 600 pixels, and a description at about 920. On a phone the description is cut sooner, at about 680. These are widths observed in real results; Google doesn't publish them.
That's why this checker reports both numbers. The character count tells you if you're in the right range; the pixel width tells you whether this particular wording fits. When it doesn't, the finding quotes the exact text Google would show, ending in "...", so you can see what a searcher would actually read.
Short isn't automatically better. A 70-character description fits everywhere but wastes space you could use to say who the page is for or what it costs.
What earns the click
A good description answers one question: why this result instead of the nine around it? We check for signs of an answer: an action word like compare, get or learn, or something concrete like a number, a price, "free" or "step by step". This is a word-list check, so we label it as our best guess. A description can be persuasive without any of these words, and one can contain them and still say nothing.
Compare these two descriptions for the same page:
- "Our guide to cake pricing. Read our cake pricing guide for information about pricing cakes."
- "Work out ingredient costs, your time and overheads, then use one formula to price every custom cake."
The first uses the keyword three times and says nothing new. It even passes the word-list check, because it contains "read" and "guide", which is exactly why you should read your own description back as a searcher. The second says what the reader will be able to do once they click.
Common mistakes it catches
- Two meta descriptions on one page, usually because a plugin and a theme both add one.
- The keyword stuffed into the title three times, which Google may respond to by rewriting the title.
- A keyword that only appears late in the description, in the part phones cut off, so mobile searchers never see it in bold.
- Straight double quotes, which can end the tag early if your site doesn't escape them.
- HTML codes like & that show up as typed because they were escaped twice.
What it can't tell you
It can't tell you how often people click. For that, open Search Console's Performance report, find the page, and compare its click-through rate with others at a similar position. A page with plenty of impressions and few clicks is the one whose title and description deserve the most attention.
It also can't promise Google will use what you wrote. Google may rewrite a title, and it picks a different passage for the description when it thinks another part of the page answers the search better. When you load a page by URL, we read the HTML before JavaScript runs, so a title or description set by scripts may not show here.
Want to see the result drawn the way Google draws it? The SERP snippet preview linked below shows it on desktop and mobile as you type.
Questions people ask
Does the meta description affect rankings?
Not directly. Google has said it doesn't use the meta description for ranking. It matters because it's often the text people read before deciding to click, and clicks are the point of ranking in the first place.
Why does Google show a different description from mine?
Google uses your meta description when it thinks it describes the page well for that search, and otherwise chooses a passage from the page. A specific description that matches what people search for is used more often.
Should every page have its own meta description?
Yes. Google's guidance is to write a unique description for each page. The same description on hundreds of pages tells searchers nothing about any of them.
How do you decide if a description gives a reason to click?
With a word list: action words such as compare, learn and get, plus concrete things like numbers, prices and "free". It's a rough guide, which is why the result says "our best guess". Read your description back as a searcher would.
Is this meta description checker free?
Yes. Pasted text is checked in your browser and never leaves it. Checking by URL reads that one public page and nothing else.
Want it done for you?
Romeo rewrites the titles and descriptions that cost you clicks
He finds the pages that show up in Google but don't get clicked, rewrites their titles and descriptions to fit and to match what people search for, and sends you the changes to approve.
