The e-Comas quick guide to Amazon's new title guidelines
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Starting this week (21 January 2025), Amazon has tightened up the rules for what makes an acceptable title on a listing.
The big news is that there’s now a character limit of 200, which will cut down a lot of very lengthy listing titles. 200 characters = about the length of this paragraph - so still plenty to play with.
The full rules are as follows:
Short and sweet
We all see Amazon listing titles that go on forever and ever. Amazon is now enforcing a 200-character limit on listing titles, which is still quite a lot of words - about the length of THIS paragraph!
As before, though, we’d recommend you keep titles to a maximum of 80 characters.
Or about the length of that paragraph.
That should give you enough room for your main keyword, a few helpful adjectives and your brand name.
More, more… but not more, more, more
Now it gets a bit more interesting: from now on, titles must not contain the same word more than twice.
If you were hoping to convey how soft your ‘Super Super Super Soft Banket’ is, you might have to come up with a couple more adjectives.
Special characters: the do$ and Don!ts
Say goodbye to your favourite special characters: !, $, ?, _, {, }, ^, ¬, and ¦.
Unless they’re part of your brand name, they’re out.
But here’s the good news: you can now use pipes and semi-colons to your heart’s content. Go wild!
Action required: edit your titles today!
Your titles need to comply with these rules from 21 January. As a Brand Owner, you can view and fix non-compliant titles in Items > Catalogue > Manage Products > Fix Products.
For non-compliant titles, Amazon will provide AI-generated override suggestions. You’ve got 14 days to check over your titles and update them before Amazon updates them for you with the AI overrides.
Direct edits: the validation pipeline
If you do make direct edits on your titles, the validation pipeline will check if they are compliant. If not, Amazon’s AI title will be implemented.
You’ll have 14 days to respond and update your own title. Don’t worry, listings will remain active during this process.
Title suppressions: the final word
Amazon will suppress non-compliant titles if there’s not a usable alternative title ready to go. That is, after 14 days the ASIN will only stay active If there’s an Amazon AI title or a compliant title from another seller.
If not, the ASIN will be suppressed, because a title is mandatory.
So, there you have it! Amazon’s new title guidelines in a nutshell. Remember, keep it short, sweet, and compliant. And maybe have a little fun with those pipes and semi-colons. Happy listing!