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From what I have heard, Google will use up to 65 characters from the title tag, which will function as the link to your site on the search engine results page (SERP). If your title goes over that amount, they will cut it to 65 characters and use an ellipsis (...) at the end.
Additionally, the meta description is usually used as the text below the link in the SERP and the character limit is 150. Go above that and I believe that the ellipsis is used. If you don't have a meta description, Google will try to take relevant text from your page.
In both cases, title and description, a good rule of thumb is to make the text as human-readable and useful to your users as possible. Because it appears in the SERP and represents your site to the searcher, it basically functions as an advertisement, and that's exactly how you should view it. Both title and description should be clearly written, helpful, accurate, and authoratative. The content of your page should deliver on the promises made by the text in your listing on the SERPs. Having a complete and clear message, without ellipses, will also make your SERP listing be more authorative, resulting in a higher clickthrough.
If you want to experiment with the best copy to use for your title and description, I'd suggest getting an AdWords account and testing the clickthrough rates of various combinations for your most important pages. Once you think you have a winning combo, edit your actual title and description on the page to match. Using this method will cost a little, but you'll also get instant feedback instead of having to wait for Google to reindex your site to test each change to the title and description.
Last edited by VirtuosiMedia; 04-24-2009 at 04:39 PM..
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