The title attribute
The Merchant Center title attribute spec, covering the 150-character limit, the ~70 characters shoppers actually see, attribute ordering, and the constructions that get titles truncated or disapproved.
The title is the single most important text field in your feed. Google matches it against what shoppers type and shows it on every ad, so a title that leads with the wrong words costs you clicks. Google allows up to 150 characters but only shows about 70, so what you put first matters far more than what you put last.
What the title attribute is
| Attribute | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
title |
The product's name as shown on ads and in search matching | Nike Air Zoom Pegasus 40 Men's Running Shoes, Black, UK 9 |
The title is the text Google shows on your Shopping ad and the primary field it matches against a shopper's query. It carries more weight than any other text attribute for both matching and click-through, which is why it's the field worth getting exactly right before anything else.
Length: the two numbers that matter
- 150 characters, the hard maximum Google accepts. Anything longer is truncated or rejected.
- ~70 characters, roughly what a shopper sees before the title is cut off on most Shopping surfaces. On narrower placements it can be less.
The practical consequence: the first ~70 characters do the selling and the matching work; the remainder helps long-tail matching but is invisible to most shoppers. Front-load, don't pad.
Attribute ordering
Google reads titles left to right and shoppers do too. The order that performs is the order a shopper would say the product out loud:
- Apparel & most branded goods:
Brand + Product Type + Attributes (Colour, Size, Material) + Model→Levi's 501 Original Men's Jeans, Dark Wash, W32 L34 - Generic / consumable goods:
Product Type + Attribute + Brand + Size→Organic Ground Coffee, Medium Roast, Lavazza, 1kg
Whichever pattern fits the category, the words a shopper would actually type belong in the first third of the string.
Deep dive What trips a title up
Titles fail in three distinct ways, and they're worth separating because the fixes differ:
- Truncation failures: the title is technically valid but leads with the wrong words, so the visible ~70 characters don't contain what the shopper searched for. This doesn't disapprove; it just quietly loses the auction. The fix is ordering, not length.
- Policy failures: promotional text (
Free Shipping,Sale,Best Price,50% Off), all-caps shouting, gimmicky punctuation (★★★, excessive!!!), or phone numbers and URLs. These belong nowhere in a title and are a common editorial disapproval. Promotions go insale_priceand promotion assets, not the title. - Keyword-stuffing failures: a title that's a list of search terms rather than a product name (
Dress Women Summer Casual Beach Party Red Blue Midi Maxi). Google's systems recognise this pattern, match it poorly, and can flag it. Write the product's real name with real attributes.
A fourth, subtler issue at catalogue scale: inconsistency. When half your titles lead with brand and half lead with product type, and colours are spelled three different ways across variants, the feed matches unpredictably and variant grouping suffers. Consistency across the whole catalogue is worth as much as any single well-written title.
Do and don't
Do:
- Lead with the brand (or product type, per category) and the words shoppers search.
- Include the attributes that define the product: colour, size, material, model number where relevant.
- Keep spelling and formatting consistent across every product and every variant.
- Use the full 150 characters only when the extra detail is genuinely useful for long-tail matching.
Don't:
- Put promotional text, prices, or shipping claims in the title.
- Use all caps, decorative symbols, or repeated punctuation.
- Stuff keywords or repeat the same word for ranking.
- Ship the same generic title across variants that actually differ.
How this works in /tools
Title quality is one of the heaviest-weighted inputs to your Feed Health Score. Enrichment builds titles to this spec, applying correct attribute ordering, front-loaded keywords, category-appropriate structure, and consistent colour and size wording pulled through from the variant data, and writes them to a supplemental layer, so your source platform data is never overwritten. For the step-by-step enrichment workflow, see product titles in Optimise. The identifiers reference covers the other half of what titles depend on: brand and model being present and correct.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a title be?
Use as much of the 150-character limit as is genuinely relevant, but front-load the important attributes (brand, product type, key differentiators) into the first ~70 characters, because that's roughly what shoppers see before truncation on most surfaces. Padding the tail with keywords adds little and can trip policy checks.
Should the brand go first?
For most categories, yes, brand then product type then defining attributes (colour, size, model). Apparel usually leads with brand; some categories (e.g. generic consumables) lead with the product type. The rule of thumb is that whatever a shopper would search for should appear early.
Can I stuff keywords into the title?
No. Titles that read as keyword lists rather than product names are a known editorial-policy trigger and match poorly against real queries. Write the title a human would recognise as the product's name, with the attributes that describe it.