Title Tag Length

[rarbel]

Is there a search engine that reads a title tag longer than 70 characters? What is the harm in writing a title tag longer than 70 characters?

[Daylan]

All search engines technically 'read' titles that are longer than 70 but will only display 70 or less. Anything longer is displayed with an ellipsis ( ... )

As the title is the first thing that users will see, having content in it longer is of no benefit (if you cant read it, whats the point?)

Theres a good write up available here about it:

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/title-tag 

(If there is a search engine that does display over 70, it's likely not much of your audience is using it)

[ChapterEight]

Just a follow up note to Daylan's great advice, the harm in it being longer than 70 characters is that the keyword usage becomes more diluted and less specific.

Cheers,

Jamie.

[rarbel]

I understand that from a conversion perspective having a title tag in excess of 70 characters is meaningless as no one will see it on Google. I also understand that some believe that a title tag with more characters may dilute the strength of the terms you really want emphasized (although there doesn't appear to be universal agreement on this point).

That said, for ranking purposes, will Google consider more than 70 characters in the title tag?

I have a specific reason for asking this question. My clients are professional service providers. Some of them are located in suburbia where no one particular suburb draws a lot of traffic. Given my content constraints and limited number of title tags, I would like to squeeze as many suburb names into the title tag even if it means that they are not visible, just for ranking purposes.