Meta Description Length: The Ideal Character Count

If ScoutRival’s SEO Score flagged “Keep descriptions 70–155 characters,” it found meta descriptions that are either too long (and getting cut off) or too short (and leaving space on the table). It’s a quick, low-risk fix — usually a one-line edit per page — and this guide gives you the exact target and how to hit it on every platform.

What is meta description length?

Your meta description is the short summary shown under your page title in search results. Its length simply means how much text is in it — measured in characters, including spaces.

The reason length matters is that search engines only give the snippet a fixed amount of room. Write past that limit and the extra text is chopped off and replaced with an ellipsis (”…”); write too little and you leave part of your storefront window empty.

A useful analogy: think of a meta description like a billboard on a motorway. Drivers pass in a couple of seconds, and the sign is only so wide. Cram in a paragraph and the end gets clipped where the billboard ends; put up three words and you’ve paid for the whole billboard but said almost nothing. The right length uses the full space to land one clear, complete message.

In one sentence: meta description length is the character count of a page’s search-snippet summary, and the ideal range is about 70 to 155 characters so the text displays in full without being truncated.

Why meta description length matters for your SEO

Meta description length doesn’t change your ranking — but it changes how your result looks, and that affects whether people click.

• Truncation hides your pitch. If your call to action or key detail sits at the end of a 200-character description, Google may cut it off before anyone reads it. The most persuasive part of your snippet never shows.
• Too short looks incomplete. A 40-character description surrounded by fuller ones can read as an afterthought and reduce trust at a glance.
• The right length maximises “SERP real estate.” A well-sized description fills the available space with a complete, benefit-led sentence — making your listing bigger, clearer, and more clickable.

A quick note on how Google actually measures this: search engines truncate the snippet based on pixel width, not a fixed character count. Wide characters (like “W” and “M”) take more room than narrow ones (like “i” and “l”), which is why the visible cut-off point shifts slightly from page to page. The practical takeaway is to treat 155 characters as a safe ceiling and always front-load your most important words, so nothing critical is at risk of being clipped.

ScoutRival’s SEO Score checks each page’s description against the 70–155 character range and flags any that fall outside it, so you can spot and fix them across your whole site at once.

To make the target concrete, here are three before-and-after examples:

• Too long (198 characters): “Welcome to our bakery in Bristol where we make fresh artisan bread, cakes, pastries and celebration cakes every single day using traditional methods, local ingredients, and lots of love — come and visit us today for a treat.” Google would clip everything after roughly “traditional methods…”.
• Too short (41 characters): “Fresh bread and cakes made in Bristol.” Accurate, but it leaves half the snippet empty and says nothing that sets you apart.
• Just right (138 characters): “Artisan bakery in Bristol baking fresh bread, cakes and pastries daily. Order celebration cakes online or visit us for a warm treat.” Complete, specific, and displays in full.

Notice the “just right” version isn’t padded — it fills the space with useful, clickable detail. That’s the goal: use the room you have to say something worth reading.

How to check if you have this problem

The 30-second manual check: Open the page’s SEO/description field in your editor (most show a live character counter) and read the number. Under 70? Too short. Over 155? Too long. If your editor doesn’t count for you, paste the description into any free character-counter tool, or simply search your page on Google and look for a description that ends in ”…” — that ellipsis means it’s being truncated.

You can also right-click the page, choose View page source, and search (Ctrl/Cmd+F) for name="description" to see the full text and eyeball its length.

The tool check: Running ScoutRival’s SEO Score measures every description it finds and lists exactly which pages are too long or too short — no counting by hand. That’s the fastest way to catch every out-of-range description in one pass.

How to fix it — step by step

The fix is always the same idea: open the page’s meta description field and edit the text until it lands between 70 and 155 characters. For long descriptions, tighten to a clear sentence or two and cut filler. For short ones, add a specific detail — a benefit, a location, a differentiator — until you fill the space. Below are the exact places to do it on each platform.

WordPress

WordPress uses an SEO plugin for the description field.

1. Edit the page or post.
2. Open the Yoast SEO or Rank Math panel (below the editor or in the sidebar).
3. Click Edit snippet (Yoast) or find the Description box (Rank Math). Both show a live length bar that turns orange when you’re too short and red when you’re too long.
4. Adjust the text until the bar sits in the green/ideal zone, then Update the page.

Wix

1. In your Wix dashboard, open the page’s SEO Settings → SEO Basics panel (via the Pages menu or Marketing & SEO → SEO Tools).
2. Edit the What’s the page about? (Description) field.
3. Trim or expand the text to fit the 70–155 range, then Save and Publish.

Squarespace

1. In the Pages panel, click the gear icon next to the page to open Page Settings.
2. Open the SEO tab and edit the SEO Description field.
3. Rewrite the text to land in range, then Save. (Squarespace doesn’t show a live counter, so paste into a character-counter tool if you’re unsure.)

Webflow

1. Open the Pages panel and click the settings/gear icon on the page.
2. Scroll to SEO Settings and edit the Meta Description field — Webflow shows a character count beneath it.
3. Adjust to fit 70–155 characters, then Save and Publish.

Shopify

1. Open the product, collection, page, or blog post in your Shopify admin.
2. Scroll to Search engine listing and click Edit.
3. Edit the Meta description field. Shopify shows a live preview and counter — trim or expand until it fits — then Save.

Any other website (custom or unlisted CMS)

If you hand-code your site or use an unlisted builder, edit the description meta tag in each page’s <head> directly. There’s no special markup for length — just make the content value land between 70 and 155 characters:

1. Open the page’s HTML (or the template that renders its <head>).
2. Find the <meta name="description" content="…"> tag and rewrite the text inside content to fit the range.
3. Front-load the key message so nothing important risks being truncated.
4. Save and redeploy. If pages share a template, make sure the variable that fills the description produces sensible lengths per page.

How to confirm it’s fixed

1. Re-count the description in your editor’s counter or a character-counter tool — it should read between 70 and 155.
2. Check the live snippet by searching your page on Google after a re-crawl; it should now display in full, with no trailing ”…”. Request re-indexing in Google Search Console → URL Inspection to speed this up.
3. Re-run your ScoutRival SEO audit. The “Keep descriptions 70–155 characters” item should now pass and your On-page pillar score should improve.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Padding a short description with filler. Don’t add “and much more!” just to hit a number — add a real detail (a benefit, a service, a location). Substance, not spacing.
• Counting words instead of characters. The limit is characters (including spaces), not words. A 20-word sentence can easily blow past 155 characters.
• Putting your call to action last on a long description. If it might get truncated, the most persuasive words should come first, not at the end.
• Assuming 155 is a hard cut. Because Google measures pixels, the real cut-off varies. Leaving a little headroom under 155 is safer than writing right up to it.
• Fixing length but forgetting quality. The right size only helps if the text is compelling — see our guide on how to write a meta description for the words themselves.

The bottom line

The ideal meta description length is about 70–155 characters — enough to make a complete, benefit-led pitch, but short enough that Google shows the whole thing. Trim the long ones so your closing line isn’t clipped, flesh out the short ones so they don’t look thin, and always put your key message first. It’s a small edit that makes every search listing look sharper.

Want to find every over- or under-length description on your site in one scan? Run a free SEO Score with ScoutRival for a prioritised, plain-English fix list. Not sure what to actually say in the description? Start with our guide on how to write a meta description.