Did Google decrease the displayed title length?

[Alex997]

My old home page title was displaying fine before today in google SERPs - but today the last word (firm) is replaced with ...

My rankings on keywords containing the missing last word (firm) have subsequently dropped by a few pages too. My title is 66 chars in length. Now with the ... 65.

Has Google changed something (eg font size, char spacing, etc) to stop the text fittings as well in the 512px width limit?

Many thanks

Alex

[tedster]

Yes, there is a change. Some people I've heard from feel that it is the total pixel width of the title characters that's in play, rather than the exact character count.

If i had to guess (snd it would be a guess) I would say that this display change is not part of any ranking change - that they are independent. However, I could easily be surprised on that.

[Alex997]

Thanks for the reply tedster. Yes well the pixel width of the div is still 512px. The title calculated properties are:

color: #609;
cursor: pointer;
display: inline;
font-family: arial, sans-serif;
font-size: 16px;
font-weight: normal;
height: auto;
line-height: 19px;
list-style-image: none;
list-style-position: outside;
list-style-type: none;
margin-bottom: 0px;
margin-left: 0px;
margin-right: 0px;
margin-top: 0px;
overflow-x: visible;
overflow-y: visible;
padding-bottom: 0px;
padding-left: 0px;
padding-right: 0px;
padding-top: 0px;
text-align: -webkit-auto;
text-decoration: underline;
text-overflow: clip;
visibility: visible;
white-space: nowrap;
width: auto;

So unless the font size has increased then I dont know why I have effectively lost a char.

[lucy24]

But, but, what does all that have to do with the title? That's displayed in the user's system font across the top of the browser window. Or, if you prefer, in google's preferred font in their list of SERPs.

Pixel width depends not only on font size and number of characters but on font name. Even em width isn't consistent.

Still wish I could wave this in the face of Site Which Shall Remain Nameless which tries to change all titles to {31 non-unique characters} + real, individual title. In that order. Especially useful in tabs.

[tedster]

Whatever happened with the title displayed for your page (Google does keep tweaking their title display rules) I say your loss in rankings is NOT because of the change in the displayed title. Ranking is the main calculation and it includes your URL's actual title element. Then the display in the SERPs is determined by another algorithm or set of rules.

What happens if your search terms include that final word? The title display algorithm should include that word and be compressed somewhere else.