Google SERP Simulator
Preview how your title and meta description will look in Google search results. Live character counts, truncation warnings, and side-by-side desktop and mobile views.
Will truncate — over 60 chars.
Approximation. Google computes width in pixels (variable per glyph); the 60/155 char thresholds are practical guides.
Ship the snippet you just previewed
InBuild generates per-route titles and meta descriptions with these length limits already applied — plus the matching Open Graph tags.
See real output firstHow to use this simulator
- Enter your title and description. Type or paste the exact <title> and meta description text you plan to ship.
- Watch the character counts. The counter turns amber past 60 characters for the title and 155 for the description — Google's practical truncation thresholds.
- Check both device previews. Toggle desktop and mobile to see how the snippet wraps in each width before you deploy.
Writing a title and description that hold up in the SERP
- Front-load the keyword. Google bolds matching query terms in the snippet — the closer to the start of the title, the more visible the match.
- Stay under ~60 characters for the title. Past that, Google truncates with an ellipsis, often mid-word.
- Write the description as a reason to click, not a summary. It doesn't affect ranking, but it's the single biggest lever you control for click-through rate once you're already ranking.
- Aim for 120–155 characters on the description. Shorter leaves Google room to append its own text; longer gets cut off mid-sentence.
- Don't keyword-stuff the title. Google rewrites titles it judges as unnatural or duplicated across many pages — a templated title with no unique signal per page is a common cause.
- Match the page's actual content. A snippet that overpromises gets a high bounce rate, which is itself a weak but real quality signal.
Frequently asked questions
What is a SERP?
Search Engine Results Page — the page Google shows when someone searches a query. Each result is a 'snippet' consisting of the page title, URL/breadcrumb, and meta description. This simulator previews how your page's snippet will look before you ship.
Why does my title get truncated in Google?
Google has a fixed pixel width for snippet titles (roughly 580 px on desktop). When your title exceeds that, Google truncates with an ellipsis. The practical character threshold is ~60 characters — anything beyond risks getting cut.
What's the ideal meta description length?
Aim for 120–155 characters. Under 120 leaves space Google might fill with auto-generated text from your page. Over 155 gets truncated mid-sentence. The 155 character cap is approximate — Google computes display width in pixels.
Does Google always use my meta description?
No. Google rewrites the snippet description for around 70% of pages, especially when the page's actual content is more relevant to the query than your meta. The meta is a baseline — write it well, and Google uses it more often.
Is this simulator measuring exact pixel width, like Google does?
No — this uses the practical character thresholds (60 for titles, 155 for descriptions) that approximate where most snippets truncate, not a per-glyph pixel calculation. Google's actual cutoff is a fixed pixel width, and narrow characters (i, l) fit more per line than wide ones (W, M). The character count is a reliable proxy for the vast majority of titles; treat anything within a few characters of the limit as borderline rather than a hard pass/fail.
Should my title match my H1 exactly?
They can differ, and often should. The <title> tag is written for the SERP — concise, keyword-forward, built to earn the click. The H1 is written for the reader who already clicked — it can be longer or more descriptive. Many well-ranking pages have a shorter title than H1.
Why does the desktop and mobile preview look different?
The mobile view renders the same title and description inside a narrower card, so you can see how the text wraps in a tighter layout — the way it would in an actual mobile SERP. Both views apply the same 60/155-character truncation; we don't model a separate, narrower mobile pixel threshold, since that's exactly the kind of over-precise claim that's hard to verify against a search engine that changes its rendering without notice.
Write the snippet once, ship it everywhere
InBuild generates per-route titles and meta descriptions with the length limits you just previewed already applied — plus the matching Open Graph tags, so the snippet you approve here is the snippet Google and Slack actually render.