My Arabic page title has about the same number of characters as the English one. Why is its width different in the preview?

Count is not width

Take the two sample titles in the Search snippet preview: the Arabic «دهن العود الكمبودي الفاخر | متجر العود» has 38 characters, and the English Cambodian Oud Oil, 3 ml to 12 ml | Oud Store has 44. The counter treats every letter, space and symbol as one. But a narrow i and a wide m are not the same on screen, and Arabic letters join and change shape by their position in a word, some very short and some stretching out. Two titles close in count can be far apart in width.

When search engines cut a title, they usually do it once the text runs past the space available on the line. That is why the tool shows both figures: characters, and about how many pixels.

How the tool measures, and why Arabic is less precise

The tool measures the title in Arial at 20 px inside your browser. Latin letters are drawn by Arial itself; Arabic letters are often drawn by a fallback font from your operating system, which differs between Windows, Mac and Android. So the figure for an Arabic title can shift a little from device to device, and it does not necessarily match whatever the search engine uses.

Reading the width status

Next to each title is one of three statuses: no text, within, or wider. The comparison is simple: a measured width of 580 px or less is within the guidance, anything above is wider. For example, if your browser measured a title at about 612 px, the tool would say it is wider and may be cut. At about 540 px it would say it is within.

Note how the message is worded: titles are often shown in full below roughly 580 px. That is a width commonly observed in results, not a limit any search engine publishes, and no promise that a shorter title will show in full.

What to do with an Arabic title near the line

1. Put the product or service name first, so if anything is cut, it is the end.
2. Drop words nobody searches for, such as best or 100% original, unless they matter.
3. Put the store name last after a separator; it is the first thing to go if space runs short.
4. Try both versions in the preview and compare the status and approximate width.
5. If the Arabic figure is very close to 580, treat it as over to be safe, since its measurement is rougher.

If you wonder why character counts sometimes differ between tools, for instance when a letter with a vowel mark counts as more than one code point, the Word and character counter separates characters as read from code points. Just remember that no character count will tell you the width, and nothing in the preview affects how your page ranks.