YouTube Title & Description Checker

YouTube character limits explained

YouTube allows up to 100 characters for a video title, but Google's search results truncate titles at approximately 60 characters. This means your most important keywords and the core subject of the video should appear in the first 60 characters to avoid being cut off in search. Descriptions support up to 5,000 characters — but only the first 157 characters appear in Google search snippets, so front-load your keywords and main value proposition. Tags are limited to 500 characters total across all tags combined.

SEO best practices for YouTube titles

The ideal YouTube title length for SEO is between 40 and 60 characters — long enough to be descriptive, short enough to display in full across Google search, YouTube search, and mobile notifications. Place your primary keyword near the beginning of the title. Use numbers, brackets, and action words to improve click-through rate. Avoid keyword stuffing — YouTube's algorithm penalises titles that read as spam.

Writing an effective description

Think of the first 150 characters of your description as a meta description — they appear in Google search results and YouTube search previews. Include your primary keyword naturally in the first sentence. Use the rest of the description for timestamps, links, relevant keywords, and supplementary information. YouTube's algorithm reads the full description, so a thorough 300–500 character description outperforms a one-liner.

Social media character limits: full comparison

Character limits vary significantly across platforms. Use this table as a quick reference — click any platform name to open its dedicated counter.