YouTube Title Checker

The 100-character limit is not the number that matters

YouTube lets you type 100 characters and most creators use them. But the surfaces where a title has to earn a click almost never show 100. Mobile search, the home feed, the suggested column beside a playing video — they cut somewhere around 60, and the exact point moves with screen width and font.

So the practical rule isn't "keep it under 100"; it's make the first 60 stand alone. If your title still makes its case when everything after character 60 disappears, the length past that is free upside. If the payoff lives at the end, most viewers never see it. The preview above shows you the cut on your own title rather than making you guess.

What the score is made of

• Searchability — does the title contain words a person would actually type? Clever phrasing that matches no query wins nothing.
• Clarity — could a stranger tell what the video is about with the thumbnail hidden? If the two only make sense together, search results break them apart.
• Curiosity — is there a reason to click beyond knowing the topic? Perfect clarity with no pull is a real weakness, not a neutral.
• Specificity— "amazing", "everything" and "the truth" cost characters and promise nothing. Numbers, named things and stated outcomes pay for their space.
• Front-loading — whether the words carrying the meaning survive the truncation point.

Checker or generator?

Use this page when you already have a title and want to know whether it's good. If you don't have one yet, the YouTube SEO Title Generator reads the video's transcript and proposes six to eight options across different angles — then you can bring the one you like back here to score it.

FAQ

How long should a YouTube title be?

Write it so the essential part lands inside the first 60 characters. YouTube's hard limit is 100, but mobile search, the sidebar, and the home feed all truncate around 60 — anything past that is a bonus for desktop viewers, never the payload.

Does the YouTube title affect SEO?

It's the single strongest text signal a video has. It determines which searches the video is eligible for, and it decides click-through once it appears. A title that ranks but nobody clicks performs worse than one that ranks lower and gets clicked.

Where should the keyword go in a YouTube title?

As close to the front as reads naturally. Keyword-first isn't a ranking rule so much as a truncation rule — if the phrase someone searched sits at character 70, it's cut off in exactly the results where they'd have recognised it.

What does this checker actually check?

Five things: whether the title contains words people search, whether a stranger can tell what the video is about without the thumbnail, whether there's a reason to click beyond the subject, whether it uses concrete words instead of vague ones, and whether the important part survives truncation.

Is the title checker free?

The truncation preview and character count are free and unlimited — they run in your browser as you type. The AI scoring and rewrites use the same free allowance as our other AI tools.