If you are a Google watcher like me, you’ve seen changes come and go on Google. Here is a new one that I am seeing now in the search results and it has to do with the length of the title tag.
“I am seeing title tags of 49 to 58 characters but typically with a pixel width on the Google page of search results ranging from 486 to 506 pixels wide. It is time to shorten your title tag from 80 characters down to 50 to 55.” – Nancy McCord, President of McCord Web Services
After reading this article at SiteProNews, I started really checking out the title tags. Previously we had been recommending a 80 character title tag but had typically exceeded that as Google would truncate the title tag to there needs, but in some cases would show the full title. Bing would show more than the 80 characters as well. Now however, Google seems to prefer about the 50 character length at this point in time and is justifying the title in formatting to fill the smaller space. The font of the title is larger but with fewer characters.
Bing is showing a variety of title tags and without the justification that Google appears to be using in formatting. Bing is also showing the title tag with a bigger font.
My recommendation at this time is that if you have not reviewed your title tags in over a year, I would recommend a review and possible revision. I will be revising mine to a 50 character length with a clear description of the page written in marketing-type language (meaning to entice a click in to my site).