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Meta Description Checker

Paste a meta description and get an estimated pixel width from a committed table of published font metrics, an approximate desktop preview, a target-phrase check, the manuscript analyzer's passive-voice detection, and whitespace and quote hygiene. Deterministic: the same description always measures the same.

The estimated pixel width, an approximate search preview and the content checks appear here as you type.

Your description never leaves this page. The checks run entirely in your browser: no upload, no server, no storage.

How this scoring works, and what it cannot tell you

This tool checks structure: estimated width, phrase presence, voice and hygiene. It cannot predict whether Google shows your description at all (Google rewrites snippets for many queries), cannot measure how persuasive the copy is, and cannot promise a clickthrough. A description that passes every check here is well formed; that is all any deterministic check can honestly claim.

The pixel estimate deserves its own caveat, spelled out under the constants below: Google's truncation varies by device and is not a published spec. The tool reports "estimated N px against a commonly observed desktop limit of ~985px, an approximation, not a Google guarantee".

Every check, exactly

CheckWhat it does
Estimated pixel widthEach character's width is looked up in a committed table of published Arial-compatible font metrics and summed at 13px, then compared with a commonly observed desktop limit of ~985px. Limits from the Screaming Frog SEO Spider user guide defaults (fetched 2026-07-14). An approximation, not a Google guarantee: Google does not publish truncation limits and adjusts them frequently.
Target phrase presentChecks whether the phrase you say the page targets appears in the description (case-insensitive). Google bolds matched words in snippets; presence is all this tool can verify.
Active voiceReuses the manuscript analyzer's passive-voice detection (a form of "to be" or "to get" followed by a past participle) on the description. Reported, not moralised.
Whitespace and quote hygieneFlags doubled whitespace and unbalanced or mixed quote marks, the copy-paste artefacts that survive into snippets.

The estimation constants, printed

  • Font approximation:Arial (Helvetica AFM metrics; metrically compatible). Descriptions measured at 13px, titles at20px.
  • Desktop limits used: ~985px for descriptions, ~561px for titles.
  • Character widths: a committed table of104 characters built from the published Adobe Helvetica AFM metrics (Arial is metrically compatible), generated by a checked-in script and verified by tests, so the estimate needs no browser and never varies. Full provenance in the site repository (charWidths.SOURCES.md).

Limits from the Screaming Frog SEO Spider user guide defaults (fetched 2026-07-14). An approximation, not a Google guarantee: Google does not publish truncation limits and adjusts them frequently.

Why pixels and not characters? Because "160 characters" was never the real rule: Google truncates by rendered width, so a description full of wide letters truncates sooner than one full of narrow ones. Character counts are shown too, but the pixel estimate is the honest measure, within the approximation stated above.

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