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Gary Illyes from Google said in last night's Google Central Live event that there is a benefit, I assume an SEO benefit, to having title tags longer than what is displayed in the search. He later added that you should keep the title tag "precise" to the topic of the page and do not worry how long it is or if it is too long.
The specific question was asked at 1:25:05, "Is there value in having title tags that are longer than the displayable text in the search snippets?" Gary said "yes."
Gary then went into more detail at 1:28:41 mark Gary said the length is "not a small number" like 160 or 220 characters long. He said if it is one sentence or so, you won't get a manual action.
So a title tag that is cut off in the search results, like the screenshot below, is fine and may benefit you if it matches on keywords:
Now this should not be a huge surprise. Google has changed the display length of the title tag numerous times and always said the length does not matter. Google has said there is no fixed title tag length. The display of a snippet is not directly related to what Google uses for ranking purposes.
Here is the video embed at the start time:
There are benefits to having title tags longer than what is displayed in Google Search, according to @methode. But of course in true Gary the Gray style, he doesn't expand on his "Yes" answer. 😂
— Jennifer Slegg (@jenstar) February 24, 2021
Gary also said it is valuable to have titles longer than the visible portion in the search results.
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) February 24, 2021
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Update: Google made the video I embedded above as private. :-/ I suspect they will repost it later after they break it up into segments.
