Title Character Limits Unknowns With July 22 Suppression Coming Up

#1

I am sure most of you by now have heard about the July 22 News update regarding title guidelines and that if you do not follow them your listings could be suppressed in search. I think this is a good thing overall however trying to formulate a plan to make the necessary changes has been very tough. I have talked to roughly 10 different Seller Support people and still have not been able to get clear answers on some of the topics.

The main question for this topic though is going to be:

How many characters can my titles have? I am in the clothing category and if you read the specific categories it says that the limit for titles in the clothing category is 80 characters. Lets dissect that even further, with clothing you have a lot of variant titles. Variant Titles are supposed to have the size and color at the end.

Your looking at this type of format:
For the Parent of Variation Products:
[Brand] + [department/ (and Special Size, if applicable)] + [product name]:
For Stand Alone or Child Products:
[Brand] + [department/ (and Special Size, if applicable)] + [product name] + [size] + [color]

Does the 80 Character limit for clothing apply to the Parent title only or does the 80 characters max o include the size and color info needed in the Child/Variant Title? Because if this is the case then your actual Parent title character limit would be more like 60 so you could leave room for the characters needed to fit [size] + [color] for the Child/Variant Title.

#2

Customers and sellers have long complained that search engines can’t find the product they want and/or are selling. The reason is, sellers spam their titles thinking it will give them the advantage, but it doesn’t. Amazon is just helping sellers use a little more thought when constructing a title. :train2:

#3

I agree with you SELLC. The issue is the lack of information.

#4

Clarification that @SEAmod has been able to obtain from the project team

#5

Hey Lake,

Thanks for the information. I have seen that as well, however it completely contradicts information that seller support gives over the phone, through email, and also just in their documentation. If you actually look at the main page that is linked to that News update it does say 200 characters on that front page but it also then says to click on your specific category to see what guidelines apply to you. For example the character limit for clothing is actually 80 but that document says 200. So which one is it? Me and a lot of other people just want clarification. I have gotten so much false information because the seller support is so uneducated about what is going on. Half of the people asked me to send them a screen shot of the news because they hadn’t heard about it.

#6

There will likely be an announcement of a new seller help page in the next few days and a link.

Seller support is totally out of the loop on this issue and rarely has as much info as was provided to sellers, or understanding of the issue. Contacting them on any new policy or enforcement is an invitation to being misinformed.

#7

How can you change titles on listings where you weren’t the original seller who created the page?
what if they are long gone?
what if they don’t even know about the titles change?

#8

There are complex rules for who has detail page control.

Often the page creator no longer has control, and the current Buy Box holder has control.

In some cases any seller can make updates on listings which are currently suppressed.

Some sellers have enhanced detail page control and can update pages others cannot.

You try, if you fail, you contact seller support.

#9

Just came back from the Selling Partner Summit in Seattle and brought this question up to a number of “Amazonians”. Everyone I talked to was also surprised by the announcement and essentially said “I don’t know, don’t worry about it.”

Not really the answer I was looking for but the takeaway was: don’t keyword stuff your titles, follow the “quick start guide”, aim for around 60 characters but definitely keep it under 200.

Jimmy

closed #10

This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.