Google and social media preview
Type a title and a description, or paste the address of a published page. You will see where Google and Bing cut them, what a share will look like on social networks, and the code to paste.
The workshop
Title, description and image for social networks
In search results
Google, desktop
Google, mobile
Bing, desktop
On social networks and messaging apps
X
The code to paste into the <head>
Measurements taken on real results pages on 20 October 2026. Google and Bing sometimes rewrite the title or description: the preview shows what your tags allow, not what the search engine will decide.
How to read these previews
A search engine does not cut a title at a number of characters: it cuts it at a width in pixels. Sixty characters made of "i" and "l" fit easily, the same number of "M" and "W" overflow. That is why the workshop measures in pixels, with the search engine's font, and gives the character count for reference only.
The limits, measured rather than copied
| Where | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Google, desktop | one line, about 600 px | two lines, about 990 px of text |
| Google, mobile | two lines of 343 px | three lines of 343 px |
| Bing, desktop | one line of 648 px | two lines, about 840 px of text |
These are the values measured on real results pages in October 2026. They change when search engines change their layout, and the figures still going around ("60 characters", "512 pixels") mostly predate Google's latest font changes.
What the preview cannot promise
Google rewrites a large share of titles and most descriptions, drawing on the page content when it thinks its own version fits the query better. Bing does it less often. A title that fits in the preview is not a guarantee, but a title that does not fit will almost always be cut or replaced.
Social networks do not read the same tags
Facebook, LinkedIn, X and WhatsApp read the Open Graph tags (og:title, og:description, og:image) and fall back on the title tag and meta description when they are missing. The title written for Google, keyword first, is not always the one that makes people click in a news feed: that is what a separate og:title is for. The image matters more than everything else, and it is the one most often missing.
What this tool does not do
- It does not tell you what Google will actually show: the search engine may rewrite your title and description. It shows what your tags allow.
- It does not reproduce social networks pixel for pixel. Their layouts change several times a year; what is accurate here is which tags are read, how the image is cropped and where the text is cut.
- It does not clear the networks' cache. After a fix, Facebook and LinkedIn keep the old preview until you ask them to re-read the page with their own tools.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a title be in 2026?
About 600 pixels on desktop, which often means 55 to 65 characters depending on the letters used. On mobile, Google allows two lines and so cuts later. Aim for the desktop limit and put the essentials first: that is the part that stays readable everywhere.
And the meta description?
On desktop, Google keeps about 990 pixels of text over two lines, roughly 150 to 160 characters. Bing cuts earlier, around 840 pixels. A longer description is not penalised: it is cut, and the end will never be read.
Why is Google not showing my title?
Because it rewrites titles it finds too long, too vague, stuffed with keywords, or identical across several pages. It then uses a heading from the page, the text of a link pointing to it, or the site name instead. A short, unique title that really describes the page is the one it keeps most often.
My Facebook share still shows the old image. Why?
Because Facebook caches the preview of an address for several days. Once your tags are fixed, ask it to re-read the page with its sharing debugger; LinkedIn has the same kind of tool. Nothing to do on our side: we read the page as it is when you submit it.
What size should the share image be?
1200 × 630 pixels, in the 1.91:1 format, as a JPEG or PNG, and a few hundred kilobytes at most. That is the size Facebook and LinkedIn recommend, and the one X shows as a large card. Keep the subject in the middle: every network trims the edges a little.
The other tools
Can my page be indexed?
Noindex, robots.txt, canonical, HTTP status: what stops Google and Bing from indexing a page, engine by engine.
Test the robots.txt
Whether the site robots.txt allows this address to be crawled.
Robots.txt generator
A robots.txt written for your site, AI crawlers included, tested before it goes live.
Find out the day a page loses its title
On the Business plan, Expansel re-reads your pages on every monitoring pass and emails you the day a deployment removes the title, adds a noindex or changes the canonical.