The <title> tag does two jobs at once: it's one of the oldest and strongest on-page ranking signals, and it's the blue headline users click in the search results. Get it right and you improve both where you rank and how often people choose you. It's the highest-leverage tag on the page.
What the title tag is
It lives in the <head> and looks like this:
<title>Title tag optimization: length and format — Example</title>It shows up in the browser tab, in the SERP headline, and in the preview when your link is shared. It is not the same as your <h1> (more on that below), and every page on your site should have a unique one.
Length and truncation
Google truncates by pixel width, not character count, at roughly 580px on desktop — about 50–60 characters in practice. Go longer and it gets cut with an ellipsis, which usually chops off your brand or the end of your message. Too short (under ~30 characters) and you're leaving valuable SERP real estate on the table.
Front-load the important words. If it gets truncated, the part that survives should still make the click worthwhile.
How to write one
A reliable format is Primary keyword — secondary context — Brand. Put the term people actually search near the front, make it read like a promise a human would click, and keep the brand at the end (or drop it on long titles). Avoid keyword stuffing — "SEO title, SEO titles, best SEO title tags" reads like spam and Google will often rewrite it.
Why Google rewrites titles
Google rewrites the displayed title on a large share of queries. It happens when your title is too long, too short, keyword-stuffed, duplicated across pages, or simply doesn't match the query well. The fix is almost never to fight it — it's to write a clear, honest, appropriately-sized title so Google has no reason to. If it's still rewriting, that's a signal your title isn't matching intent.
Title tag vs H1
The title tag is for search engines and the SERP; the <h1> is the on-page headline for readers. They can differ — the title often carries the brand and is tuned for the SERP, while the H1 can be longer or more editorial. But they shouldn't contradict each other; the page should clearly be about the same thing in both. See heading structure for SEO for how the H1 fits the rest of the outline.
How to check yours
Two things to audit across your site: are any titles missing, duplicated, or truncated? SEO Inspector shows the current page's title with a live pixel-width measurement, flags it when it runs long or short, and sits alongside the rest of your on-page checklist — so you catch a bad title before it ships, not after it costs you clicks.
