We’re updating our product title policy to standardize listings and enhance the shopping experience across our stores.
Over time, we’ve observed that product titles have become longer, and they sometimes include redundant wording or characters that can decrease customer confidence. These new policy changes will help ensure that product titles are clear, concise, and consistent.
The following new requirements will take effect on January 21, 2025:
For most product categories, titles may not exceed 200 characters, including spaces.
The special characters !, $, ?, _, {, }, ^, ¬, and ¦ are not allowed, unless they are part of the brand name.
Titles may not contain the same word more than twice. Prepositions, articles, and conjunctions are exceptions.
If you have titles that do not comply with the requirements listed above, we recommend that you update them.
Starting January 21, all title changes will be subject to the updated policy, and you’ll be able to view and fix any non-compliant titles in Manage All Inventory.
Additionally, we’ll provide override suggestions for non-compliant titles to brand owners in Review Listing Updates. Brand owners will have 14 days to act upon on the suggestions before we update the titles to comply with our requirements. These suggestions will be rolled out gradually.
Your listings will remain active during this process, and you’ll still be able to make edits to your product titles as long as your changes comply with the new policy.
We’ll host an Ask Amazon event on January 8, 2025, during which our experts will answer your questions about title requirements on Amazon Seller Forums.
For more information, including character limits by product category and store, go to Product title requirements and guidelines.
I look forward to the shenanigans happening on books, games, etc., with a fixed title (portion, at least!) that may not comply with Amazon’s demands.
I personally mentally filter out spam-filled product titles when I’m shopping for myself but the average bear probably doesn’t look at listings using these techniques askance like I do.
As a book guy, I could care less. But agree it seems like at worst a neutral change.
I got to thinking last night, after a 2am water leak kept me up for hours, that the last positive change I can really recall was when they implemented shipping templates so I could select normal or expedited per sku (or book) and charge accordingly.
But then I remembered that their new ssa, shs, acronymopoly “features” penalize expedited orders so I have turned that shipping template off. Making the last literal improvement I can think of, probably a decade old as it is, moot.
Amazon has so many bad titles that we refuse to list against that I am not sure what to say. Most of these do not have sellers for a reason, I suspect.
Having said this, I think that most of the bad titles have been suppressed one way or another over the past ten years. This should primarily affect new titles, I think.
Generally speaking, I, too am in favor of Amazon’s intent with this new initiative.
However, having seen somany poorly-parameterized enforcement Amabots deployed over the years, I remain trepid that chaos is about to ensue.
There have been some good points along those lines raised by 3P Sellers in the News Headline-accompanying NSFE discussion (link), and I harbor little doubt that @ least some of the situations such as those described in the two below-linked posts there probably stand a fair chance of actually occurring:
Maybe this will clear up some clutter for vinyl listings.
Several years ago a now longtime banned seller was creating duplicate listings with condition notes and grades in the title and listed their eBay store as the brand. The product descriptions were just advertisements for their store. Pretty sure Amazon kicked them off for doing it all the time but the detail pages they made remained.
Frankly, if this takes a few hundred of their violation pages down, I’ll call this a good change.
Nope, but here’s one of their past atrocities as a example. It appears Amazon took their blatant self advertising out of the product descriptions, but if you take a look where it says manufacturer and label, you’ll get a good idea. https://www.amazon.com/SPLIT-Waiata-Vinyl-Cover-4848/dp/B01MDV7YCL
I was mistaken - they took down a lot of those descriptions, but some are still active on Amazon too - feel free to look at ASIN B0029RAN72 for an example.
The thing is…I started selling on Amazon in 2018, and this is the 3rd or 4th “product title” reset I can recall, and none of them have actually solved any problems with Sellers hellbent on keyword stuffing or brand hijacking.
a. The game has to be played the way the game is designed
b. In this vain, sellers are doing whatever they can to win the game
c. I don’t blame sellers for doing so as exposure has very high CPCs/CPMs
d. The lack of brand control, automations and the ‘more often than not’ fiascos these automations create - don’t allow for the maneuverability and testing that is often required to win.
e. How many brand title changes can one do without updates not taking effect? How many automations ruin listing visibility, cause suspensions and obliterate real $ from Sellers?
I’m sure there is more. But if title stuffing is a huge issue, then Temu and Shien wouldn’t be doing as well as they are in the US market.
Jim made a similar reply to another poster in that News Headline-accompanying NSFE discussion, also declaring that Book Titles were exempt, but I’ve yet to see any clarification as to whether or not said exemption applies to BMVD Offer-Listings as a whole, or strictly to books…
