📝 SEO

SEO Meta Description Length

Counts characters and words of meta description, flagging the ideal 120-160 range.

Input

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The 120 to 160 band, in context

You polish a meta description and then search shows different text, or your sentence stops mid-thought. Paste the description into the field and the tool counts characters and words and tells you whether you sit inside the 120 to 160 band, warning when it runs short or when it has gone long enough to risk truncation.

Two facts change how you should read that number. A meta description is not a ranking factor; it moves clicks. And Google rewrites the snippet for most queries, pulling whichever passage on the page answers the search best. The 120 to 160 band comes from where desktop truncates; on mobile the ruler is shorter, closer to 120 characters.

Front-load the payoff in the first 110 characters and include the phrase someone would actually type, since it comes back bolded in the snippet. One description per page: repeating the same line across dozens of URLs is worse than leaving it out. The count is in characters, not pixels, and there is no visual SERP preview here. Leading and trailing spaces are trimmed, and everything runs in your browser.

Frequently asked questions

Does a meta description help rankings?

Not directly, it is not a ranking factor. The effect shows up in click-through rate among people who already see your result.

Why does Google show text I did not write?

Because it picks the passage that best matches the query typed. That is normal behaviour and happens for most searches.

How many characters should I use?

Between 120 and 160 is the safe band on desktop. If your traffic skews mobile, make sure the main idea fits in the first 120.

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