Too few column delimiters
What causes the "Too few column delimiters" error in Merchant Center and how to fix it.
This error means a row in a CSV or TSV feed has fewer delimiters than the header row, so its columns don't line up correctly, usually from an unescaped comma or tab inside a text field. Fix it by checking for unescaped delimiters inside descriptions or titles and quoting the field properly.
What triggers it
"Too few column delimiters" means a specific row has fewer commas or tabs than Google expects based on the header row, so the values in that row no longer line up with the right attributes. The usual cause is a text field, most often a title or description, containing an unescaped delimiter character that should have been quoted.
This is one of the malformed-file problems covered more broadly in feed processing errors: one bad row like this can shift or drop every value after it for that product, and in some feed formats can even affect parsing further down the file.
Because /tools serves a feed built programmatically from structured catalogue data, every value is escaped and quoted correctly by construction, which is what prevents this error rather than needing to hunt for a stray comma after the fact.
Step by step
- Find the row number in the processing report. Google's error usually names the specific row; open the actual served file at that line rather than your source export.
- Look for an unescaped delimiter inside a text field. A comma in a CSV description, or a tab inside a TSV title, that isn't wrapped in quotes will be read as a column break, shifting every value after it in that row.
- Quote the field properly. Wrap any text field that might contain the delimiter character in quotes so it's read as a single value rather than split apart.
- Re-submit and confirm the row parses correctly. Once the row's column count matches the header and Google re-fetches the feed, the error should clear within the normal crawl window.