As one character each, which is what you would expect but not what most counters do. In JavaScript, "😀".length is 2 and a family emoji like 👨👩👧 is 8, because those measure UTF-16 code units. This tool uses Intl.Segmenter to count grapheme clusters — what a human sees as one character. The UTF-8 byte count is shown separately, since that is what SMS and database column limits actually measure.
What is the ideal meta description length?
Around 150–160 characters. Google truncates desktop snippets near 160 and mobile closer to 120, and it frequently rewrites descriptions entirely based on the query. Aim to front-load the important content in the first 120 characters so it survives any truncation.
Why does my SMS count differently?
SMS uses a 7-bit GSM alphabet, giving 160 characters per message — but any character outside that alphabet (including most emoji and curly quotes) switches the whole message to UCS-2, which drops the limit to 70. One emoji can therefore turn a single SMS into three.