Invalid characters [title]: how to fix it
Why Merchant Center flags "Invalid characters [title]" and how to clean a title so it passes.
"Invalid characters [title]" means the title contains characters Google won't accept, usually private-use Unicode symbols, control characters, or encoding artefacts. Strip them out and keep the title to plain, readable text.
What triggers it
This flag fires when a title contains characters outside what Google's parser treats as valid text, most commonly private-use area Unicode (the block often used for icon fonts and decorative symbols), control characters carried over from an encoding mismatch, or stray formatting characters introduced by a copy-paste from a PDF or design tool.
These characters are frequently invisible in a spreadsheet but present in the underlying data, which is why the fastest way to spot them is opening the raw feed value rather than eyeballing the cell.
/tools' enrichment normalises titles to plain, valid text as part of writing them into the supplemental layer, so stray Unicode and control characters never make it into the submitted feed.
Step by step
- Identify the affected products. Filter Diagnostics to "Invalid characters [title]". Open a few titles in a plain text editor rather than a spreadsheet, since spreadsheets often hide the offending characters.
- Strip non-standard characters. Remove private-use Unicode symbols (decorative stars, arrows, emoji), control characters, and encoding artefacts left over from copy-pasting between systems.
- Keep to plain, readable text. Standard letters, numbers and common punctuation only. Save any promotional symbols for on-site copy, not the feed.
- Resubmit and confirm the title renders cleanly. Push the corrected feed. Clears automatically once the title contains only valid characters.