Why SEOmoz says to keep title tag not more than 65 character?

[ShashankGupta]

Why SEOmoz says to keep title tag not more than 65 characters?

I have this question that what is the disadvantage if my meta title is 150 character? Why everyone focus in keeping it short ?

If i put all my important keywords in starting of title tag say in first 65 characters and keep the title 100-150 character how can it hurt my website? Google will consider 65 character, right but it won’t penalize me for having 110 character then please explain Why we focus so much…

I know i used too many why just to tell i am nt a lawyer just trying to act like one , just kidding.

[krissy-cca]

Shashank,

Google and most other search engines only display a max of between 65/70 characters in the SERP. You've got that much space to get your keyword in there and maybe a call to action (although you can further target this in your description where you get a max of 155 charcters before the cut off).

You've also got to ask yourself if you put a 150 character title tag how it will benefit your site, if at all

Also, don't forget that the title/description are used to improve CTR too (and not just for rankings) so having a spammy looking Title with 3 keywords put in the displayed character length with no consideration for human readability will have a negative affect on your CTR.

[StalkerB]

Simple, Google will only display 65 characters in the SERPs pages and you need to craft your titles for the maximum benefit which includes getting click throughs.

Also If you have 100 - 150 characters then each word is diluted in strength (to a degree) and if it needs to be that long then your page isn't as focused as it could be, you may be better off with 2 pages targeting different aspects of the keywords.

Keywords at the beginning of a title tag are currently thought to be useful - http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#ranking-factors

However correlation data shows keywords in title may actually have a negative correlation to ranking - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-vs-bing-correlation-analysis-of-ranking-elements - (On Page Keyword Usage section)

You won't really be penalized for it, but it's certainly not best practise.

[Jeepster]

I'm no expert but my tuppeny's worth:

Re: the meta "description" tag, it's because if it's ridiculously long it gets truncated on a Google Serps page with ellipsis (...) There is one school of thought that actually favours this on the grounds that it supposedly encourages "curiousity value" click through, eg "This website shows you how to make $1million just by...[ABRUPT STOP]

Re: Title tag, a similar argument applies, although (& I stand to be corrected) the rule of thumb is anything over about 80 chars begins to look spammy, as does repeating any one word in the title tag more than twice.

[eyepaq]

The Title tag will help you rank but it's also very important for direct users as with a "spamy" look with a very long staffed title tag user will / can wander.

Related with the SEO factor, with many words within the title tag the keyword power will be diluted.

Personally I keep everything as short as possible but in some cases when the title is dynamic (post name or whatever) if it looks right then you can let it slide (see thetitle of this page - is 70+ but it looks right.. right ? :))

I am curious about what other people feel about this ...

[joshfialkoff-77863]

I have heard that Google does indeed use characters after the 65 character display limit in its ranking algorithms. Is this true and does it therefore make sense to have title tags longer than 65 characters, so long as the first 65 characters (or 60 in many cases) are a complete thought on their own?

Here is a page describing this strategy:

http://www.seologic.com/faq/title-tags.php#limits