Title tags longer than 60 characters get truncated in search engine results. Google replaces the end of your carefully crafted title with an ellipsis, cutting off keywords and reducing the impact of your listing. Overly long titles can also dilute keyword relevance by spreading focus across too many terms.

This guide shows you how to find every page with a long title tag using the crawler.sh CLI.

Step 1: Install crawler.sh CLI

Install the CLI with a single command:

curl -fsSL https://install.crawler.sh | sh

This downloads the correct binary for your operating system and architecture, places it in ~/.crawler/bin/, and adds it to your PATH. Restart your terminal or run source ~/.bashrc (or ~/.zshrc) to pick up the new PATH entry.

Verify the installation:

crawler --version

Step 2: Crawl the target website

Run a full crawl of the website you want to audit:

crawler crawl https://example.com

The crawler records every page’s title tag. Results are saved as an NDJSON file (.crawl) in the current directory. For larger sites:

crawler crawl https://example.com --max-pages 5000

Step 3: Run SEO audit

Run the SEO analysis on your crawl data:

crawler seo example-com.crawl

The long titles check flags any page where the title tag exceeds 60 characters.

Step 4: Identify long titles

Look for the Long Titles section in the SEO report. Each entry shows the URL and its current title. Common patterns that produce long titles:

Appending the full site name to every page title (e.g., “Page Title | Full Brand Name - Tagline Description”)
Including breadcrumb paths in the title
Keyword stuffing with multiple synonyms
CMS templates that concatenate category, subcategory, and page name

Step 5: Fix and re-crawl

Trim each long title to 60 characters or fewer. Focus on:

Leading with the most important keywords
Removing redundant brand name suffixes or shortening them
Cutting filler words like “the”, “and”, “best”
Using a single separator (| or -) instead of multiple

After fixing, re-crawl to verify:

crawler crawl https://example.com
crawler seo example-com.crawl

Why long titles matter for SEO

When Google truncates your title, the most important keywords at the end may be hidden. Users see an incomplete title and are less likely to click. Keeping titles within 60 characters ensures your full message appears in search results. It also forces you to prioritize the most relevant keywords, which can improve rankings for your target terms.