There has been a bit of discussion of late about the length of AdWords ad titles with some advertisers reporting more than 25 characters being displayed in their title.

Search Engine Roundtable first discussed the issue back in March when Google confirmed there was a bug in their system which was allowing some advertisers to display more than the 25 character limit.

The latest news is that an AdWords representative has actually told an advertiser how they can make their ad title longer.

The news broke in a WebmasterWorld thread. Here is the main discussion:

Nancy99: This just in from a chat conversation with a Googler at AdWords! Was told by a specific Googler with the initials P.A. that “If you use keyword insertion in you ad text, the ad title may show more than 25 characters.”

So it seems the answer is dynamic keyword insertion. What is dynamic keyword insertion? It’s an advanced feature in AdWords which allows the advertisers to insert code into the ad text. Then when the searcher sees your ad, the keyword they used in that search replaces the code in you ad text.

This technique should be used with caution as Barry Schwartz from Search Engine Roundtable explains:

There are many issues with using dynamic keyword insertion. Specifically the ad simply might not work all the time, plus the title might not always match the ad description, amongst other issues.

So Google… is it a bug or not? If we hear anything more about this we will be sure to keep you informed.