Field notes
Playbooks, teardowns and the occasional argument — everything we have learned helping creators grow across every major platform.
The 100-character limit is the number the upload form enforces. The numbers that decide whether anyone reads your title are 70, 60 and 40, and nothing mentions those.
The "1-2%" target repeated across the web has no source. Two things about a keyword are checkable - whether it is present and where it first appears - and they are what to measure.
Google gives a desktop snippet two lines and a phone three. The useful target is one clear promise inside about 155 characters — and Google may still use a passage instead.
A title tag is cut by width, not by character count. The desktop column is about 600 pixels — which is anywhere from 45 to 75 characters depending on the letters.
A search snippet is assembled, not published. Google picks the title, often rewrites it, chooses the description from the page, and cuts both to fit a fixed column.