0ptimum Amount of Characters

[lama]

Greetings,
What is considered the 0ptimum amount of Characters in the Title of your document.
Should "meta name="description" content" Basically mirror your title?
What is best advised for: "meta NAME="keywords" CONTENT" ?
Thanks

[alex-party]

<TITLE></TITLE>
(63 symbols)

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="">
(MAX 150 symbols)

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="">
(255 symbols, and >10 keywords)

[toinkzzz]

Originally Posted by lama

Should "meta name="description" content" Basically mirror your title?

Meta Description Mirror the whole page itself... so put all the details that best describes your site...

[BreaktheSilence]

Originally Posted by alex-party

<TITLE></TITLE>
(63 symbols)

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="">
(MAX 150 symbols)

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="">
(255 symbols, and >10 keywords)

If you don't mind me asking, what's the 63 title symbols based on? Is that the max before it's snipped by most engines? Or perhaps something else?

[alex-party]

Originally Posted by BreaktheSilence

If you don't mind me asking, what's the 63 title symbols based on? Is that the max before it's snipped by most engines? Or perhaps something else?

Of course I don't mind.
63 is the max chars for Google. If more than 60(+-)3, it cuts off the title.
Not sure about MSN and Yahoo, but I think it's also around 60.
Google is more flexible with titles. If you create a title where 1 word in the range of 63-68, Google will make an exception and accept this title in full range. I mean, if you have:

0 character......................................... ...........60..3..5..7..9
My Title - Why would someone need a refrigerator in Antarctica?

See there, last word started on 62th position. Google will accept the last word even if it exceeds 63 chars length. If the last word started on 64th position, it would be cut off to something like this:

My Title - Why would someone need a refrigerator in ...

So eventually, if your last word is the most important in your title, you may miss the whole fun

I made this observation long time ago, so that's how I remember it, if I made a mistake in ranges +-1, please forgive me.

Luck,

[alex-party]

Oh, for those who don't understand the meaning of metadata, I just figured out a simple example. Imagine that web site is a book - same that you would see in a book store or library. Title - is what you see on the cover. Description is the author's intro on first page. Ask yourself, how would you buy a book? You look at the cover and if this is what you want, you take it and read the intro on first page. Is that right?

Well, same with web pages, you should be able to read page title with one look, then if you need more info, you look at description.

I saw many web sites where title exceeded 400 chars, so imagine you saw a book in the shop that has such title. How long would you need to stare at it before you decide to buy it?

Now that you know how books looks, you'll be able to make good web titles

[BreaktheSilence]

Originally Posted by alex-party

Now that you know how books looks, you'll be able to make good web titles

Alex,

Many thanks for the book analogy. I think it's very helpful for people to think about web titles along these lines. Once again, thanks for taking the time!