SERP Snippet Preview Tool
See exactly how your title tag and meta description will look in Google on desktop, tablet and mobile, measured in pixels and truncated the way Google really truncates.
Write your snippet
We read the live page and fill in its current title and meta description, so you can see what searchers see today before you change a word.
Google shows the site name and a breadcrumb trail here, not the raw address. The preview does the same.
Used to bold matching words and to check that your snippet answers the search. Leave it empty to skip both.
Fine-tune the preview
These only change what the preview draws. The date and the rating are drawn when you switch them on below.
Google preview
Checks
What a SERP snippet preview tool shows you
A search result is three lines of text and a web address, and for most people it is the only part of your page they will ever read. The title decides whether they look at you at all. The description decides whether they click you or the result underneath. Yet almost everybody writes both blind, in a cramped input box in their CMS, and finds out how it actually looks only after it is live.
This SERP snippet preview tool draws the result for you before you publish. Type a title and a meta description and you see the finished snippet exactly as Google lays it out: the same typefaces, the same sizes, the same greys and blues, the same column width, and the same point at which the text gets cut off. Switch between desktop, tablet and mobile and watch the snippet change, because the three are not the same shape, and a description that survives on a phone can be chopped in half on a laptop.
Why pixels decide the cut, not characters
Nearly every piece of advice about title tags is given in characters: keep it under 60, keep the description under 160. Those numbers are averages, and averages hide the thing that actually matters. Google does not count your characters. It fills a line of a fixed width with your text and cuts when the line runs out of room.
Letters are not the same width. A capital W is more than three times as wide as a lower-case i. “Will Milliwatt Widgets Work?” and “ill illillilli illilli illi?” have the same character count and nothing like the same width on screen. That is why a 58-character title sometimes truncates while a 64-character one does not, and why character counters quietly mislead people every day.
So this tool measures the real thing. Every keystroke is measured in pixels, at Google’s own text sizes, and the figure is shown against the limit as you type. The bar underneath each field turns amber as you approach the edge and red the moment Google would cut you off. The preview above it truncates at precisely the same word Google would, and adds the same ellipsis.
The numbers this tool uses, and where they came from
These figures were read off a live Google results page rather than copied from an article, because the published numbers contradict each other and most of them are years out of date.
- Desktop and tablet. The result column is 652 pixels wide, and it stays 652 pixels wide on every screen from a small laptop to a large monitor, so your snippet is cut in the same place for everyone. The title renders at 22px and gets a single line, with Google trimming the text at roughly 600 pixels. The description renders at 14px and gets two lines.
- A note on the font. Google sets its titles in Google Sans, which is proprietary and cannot be loaded anywhere else, so the measurement here uses Arial at the same size. Arial is the fallback Google itself specifies and the two are close. We sampled 167 live Google titles to check: 94 per cent measured at or under 600 pixels in Arial, which is why that is the figure the tool holds you to. The handful that measured wider were titles heavy in capitals, where Arial is a little wider than Google Sans, so on those the tool errs on the safe side rather than the risky one.
- Mobile. The content column is 343 pixels. The title still renders at 22px but is allowed two lines, and the description gets three. In practice that means a phone often shows more of your description than a desktop does, which surprises most people the first time they see the two side by side.
Google truncates at a word boundary, never mid-word, and adds an ellipsis. The preview reproduces that behaviour rather than approximating it, so the words you see are the words searchers will see.
How to write a title that survives
- Put the important words first. If you are cut off, you lose the end. A title that opens with its topic still works truncated; one that opens with your brand name does not.
- Write for the search, not for the sitemap. Type the query you are targeting into the search term box and the preview puts every word of it that appears in your snippet in bold, exactly as Google does. If nothing goes bold, you have written a title about your page rather than about the thing somebody is looking for.
- Do not repeat yourself. “Running Shoes: Best Running Shoes for Running” wastes two thirds of a very small budget. The checks list flags a word used twice for exactly this reason.
- Skip the capitals. Capitals are wide, so they cost you pixels, and Google is more likely to rewrite a title that shouts.
- Leave the brand to Google. It prints your site name above the title on its own. Adding it again inside the title spends pixels on something already on the screen.
How to write a description people actually click
The meta description is not a ranking factor and has not been one for many years. It is an advert. Its only job is to make your result the most appealing one on the page, and the results around you are the competition.
Specific beats vague, every time. “Learn about running shoes” tells a reader nothing they had not already assumed. “We tested 42 pairs over six months; here are the five best for new runners, from $55” tells them what they get, how much work went into it, and what it will cost. Numbers, dates and prices survive scanning better than adjectives do.
Front-load it. If Google cuts your description, it cuts the end, so put the reason to click in the first sentence and treat the second as a bonus that may never be seen. And if your page is one Google treats as dated, such as a news story or a blog post, turn on the published date in the preview: the date is printed in front of your description and eats into the space you have, which is easy to forget until you see it.
Why your live snippet may not match what you wrote
Google rewrites titles and descriptions whenever it thinks it can serve the searcher better, and it does so on a large share of results. It may substitute your H1, your site name, or a sentence pulled from the body of the page because it matches the query more closely than your description did.
You cannot switch this off, but you can make it less likely. Write a title that genuinely and specifically describes the page. Keep it inside the pixel limit, because an over-long title is a common trigger for a rewrite. Avoid keyword stuffing and repeated brand names. And make sure the page really is about what the title claims, since a rewrite is usually Google telling you that your tag and your content disagree.
Checking pages that are already live
Switch to “Import from a page”, paste any address, and we fetch that page and fill in its current title and meta description. It is the quickest way to audit what is already out there: you see the live snippet rendered properly, at the correct width, with the truncation shown, instead of squinting at view-source.
It works on any public page, not only your own, so it doubles as a way to study how the results you are competing against are written. Open the page ranking above you, import it, and read its snippet next to yours at the same size.
Where this fits with the other tools
A snippet preview is the last step before publishing, and several of the other free tools here cover the steps around it.
- If you are still deciding what to call the piece, run the headline through the Blog Title Analyzer first. It scores a title out of 100 and lets you compare up to ten of them, then you can bring the winner here to check that it fits.
- To count what you have written before pasting it in, the Word Counter has character limit presets for both a 60-character title tag and a 160-character meta description.
- To see whether the page behind the snippet actually covers the term you are targeting, the Keyword Density Checker reads the live page and reports how often each phrase appears and where.
- To audit a whole site’s worth of snippets rather than one page, pull every URL with the XML Sitemap Keyword Extractor and work through the important ones, or build a fresh list of what is indexable with the XML Sitemap Generator.
Is anything sent anywhere?
No. The preview, the pixel measurements and the checks all run in your browser, so the titles and descriptions you are drafting never leave the page and are never stored. The single exception is the import button: to read a page’s current tags we have to request that page, and the only thing sent is the address you pasted. The preview also shows a plain initial where the favicon goes rather than fetching a real one, because fetching it would mean handing your unpublished URL to a third party.
Why pixels, not characters
Google cuts a snippet when it runs out of room on the line, not when it hits a character count. A title of sixty narrow letters fits; sixty wide ones do not.
Measured off a real result page
The type sizes, colours and column widths here were read from a live Google result page, not copied from a blog post, and the limits were checked against 167 real Google titles. The desktop column is 652px and holds one line of title and two of description.
Pixel width as you type
Both fields show the exact rendered width against the limit, with the character count beside it. The bar turns amber as you approach the edge and red once Google would cut you off.
Desktop, tablet and mobile
Mobile is not simply narrower: it gives you two lines of title and three of description instead of one and two, so a snippet that is cut on desktop can survive on a phone.
Import what is live now
Paste any address and we read the page and fill in its current title and meta description, so you can see what searchers see today before you change a word.
Bolded search terms
Type the query you want to win and the preview bolds the matching words as Google does, which is the quickest way to see whether your snippet answers the search. Switch it off whenever you would rather read the snippet plainly.
The rest of the page, optional
Switch on sponsored ads, an AI Overview, a map pack, People also ask, competing results, a star rating or a published date. Your own result is outlined and labelled, so you can see how far down the page it really sits.
Checks worth acting on
Missing tags, titles that shout, a word used twice, a query that appears nowhere in your copy, a page still on HTTP. Each one tells you what to change rather than just flagging a number.
Questions about SERP snippets
How long should a title tag be?
On desktop Google gives you roughly 600 pixels on a single line. That works out at about 55 to 60 characters of ordinary mixed-case English, but the count is only a rough guide: a title full of capitals, or of wide letters such as W and M, runs out of room far sooner than one full of narrow ones like i and l. Watch the pixel figure rather than the character count, and put the words that matter first so they survive if Google does cut you off.
How long should a meta description be?
Desktop shows two lines in a 652 pixel column, so around 155 to 160 characters. Mobile shows three narrower lines, which works out at a similar length. Because the two layouts cut at different points, check both before you publish. Writing to about 150 characters keeps you safe on either one.
Why is my live snippet different from what I wrote?
Google rewrites titles and descriptions whenever it thinks it can serve the searcher better, and it does so often. It may swap in your H1, your site name, or a sentence lifted from the page that matches the query more closely. You cannot stop it, but you make a rewrite less likely by writing a title that genuinely describes the page, keeping it inside the pixel limit, and making sure it is not stuffed with keywords or repeated brand names.
Does the meta description affect rankings?
Not directly. Google has said for years that the meta description is not a ranking factor. It matters because it is your advert in the results: a clear, specific description earns more clicks than a vague one, and click-through is what turns a ranking into traffic. Treat it as copywriting rather than as an SEO tag to fill in.
Which font is the measurement made in?
Arial, at the sizes Google itself uses. Google sets result titles in Google Sans, which is proprietary and cannot be loaded by anyone else, and Arial is the fallback Google itself names in its stylesheet. We sampled 167 live Google titles to check how close that is: 94 per cent measured at or under 600 pixels in Arial, which is the limit this tool holds you to. The few that measured wider were titles full of capitals, where Arial runs a little wider than Google Sans, so on those the tool warns you slightly early rather than slightly late.
What are the AI Overview, ads and map pack options for?
To show you where your result actually lands. A snippet that looks strong on its own can sit below a search bar, an AI Overview, two ads and a map pack, which is a very different proposition for the person searching. Switch them on and your result is outlined and labelled so you can see how far down the page it has been pushed, and read it next to the results it is competing with. The AI Overview expands when you click Show more, exactly as it does on Google, and its source cards only appear once it is open.
One important caveat: those surrounding blocks are illustrative. The wording in them is generic filler, not real competitor data, and whether Google shows any of them depends entirely on the query. Only your own snippet is measured. Treat the rest as a layout sketch of the page, not as a forecast of what will appear for your keyword.
They are drawn to scale, though. The type sizes, colours and spacing were taken from a live results page, and the map is painted in the browser using the same palette as Google's own map tiles, so no tile server is contacted and nothing about the page you are working on leaves your machine.
Can I turn the bold keywords off?
Yes. Bolding is the first switch under the device tabs and you can turn it off at any time to read your snippet plainly. It is on by default because seeing which of your words Google would emphasise is usually the fastest way to judge whether a title answers the search, but nothing depends on it. The search term is still used for the checks either way, and leaving that field empty skips both.
Does a star rating or a date change how much text Google shows?
A date does, a rating does not. The date is printed in front of your description and eats into the same two lines, so switching it on can push a sentence off the end. A rating sits on its own line between the title and the description and takes nothing away from either, though it does make your result taller. Both are worth previewing if your pages are dated or carry review markup.
Why does the preview show a letter instead of my favicon?
Fetching a favicon would mean asking a third party for it and handing over the address you are working on. We would rather not send your unpublished URLs anywhere, so the preview shows a plain initial in the same place and at the same size. Nothing about the spacing or the truncation changes.
Is my text sent anywhere?
The preview, the measuring and the checks all run in your browser, so nothing you type leaves the page. The one exception is the import button: to read a page's current title and description we have to fetch that page, and only the address you pasted is sent. Nothing is stored either way.