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Google truncates titles on pixel width, not character count, which is why the sixty-character rule you have read fails on exactly the titles where it matters.

A lowercase l occupies a fraction of the space of a capital W. Sixty narrow characters can fit comfortably; fifty-five wide ones can get cut. Character limits are a rough proxy that breaks down at the boundary — and the boundary is where every title you actually care about sits.

So the number to watch on this page is the pixel figure rather than the character count. The measurement uses per-character widths and is an approximation, so treat it as a warning system rather than a ruler.

The description

Somewhere between 120 and 160 characters gives you the fullest snippet without being trimmed. It is not a ranking factor and never has been. It is a ranking-adjacent one: it decides how many people click the result you already earned, which is worth as much attention as the title.

Why Google shows something you did not write

Often, and in a large share of results. If your description does not match the query well, Google substitutes a passage from the page that does — it is choosing relevance over your marketing copy, and it is usually right to.

You are writing a strong suggestion rather than issuing an instruction. The way to make the suggestion stick is to write descriptions that cover what people actually search for, rather than what you would like them to know.

Worth doing per page

Duplicated descriptions across a site waste the one line of free sales copy Google gives you. For pages you care about, write them individually. For the long tail, leaving it blank is better than repeating a template — Google will pull something relevant from the page instead.