Amazon Title Rules: Character Limits, Banned Words And Truncation

On 27 July 2026 the rule changed on almost every listing on Amazon. In Amazon's words: "Starting July 27, 2026, titles in all categories except for media will need to be 75 characters or less including spaces". Source: Amazon Seller Central, primary, 2026.

Seventy-five characters is roughly this sentence, and for most sellers less than half of what the title held the week before. The 200 characters have not disappeared though, they have been split. Amazon added a second field, Item Highlights, carrying up to 125 characters "for sharing materials or recommended use cases that help customers compare options". Same total, two boxes, one of them short.

The part that will actually annoy you is that everything Amazon has ever penalised in a title still applies inside the new limit. Promotional wording, decorative symbols, capitals and repeated words were a problem at 200 characters and remain one at 75, with far less room to hide them.

What the rule actually says

Media categories keep the old length. Everything else moved to 75 characters including spaces, with Item Highlights holding the remaining 125.

The question every seller asks next is whether the second field is a dumping ground with no search value, and Amazon answered it directly: "Item name and Item highlights are both inputs for search, and one isn't prioritized over the other". Source: Amazon Seller Central, primary, 2026. Amazon also recommends keeping the brand name in the Item name.

For titles left over the limit, Amazon said it would replace them gradually with an AI recommendation, that listings stay active throughout, and that sellers can edit at any time. Brand owners get 14 days to review, modify or approve a suggested change first. That window is the most valuable thing in the policy, and it only helps people who open their notifications.

The rules that did not change

The January 2025 requirements still stand underneath the new length. Amazon's wording at the time: "The special characters !, $, ?, _, {, }, ^, ¬, and ¦ are not allowed, unless they are part of the brand name", and "Titles may not contain the same word more than twice. Prepositions, articles, and conjunctions are exceptions." Source: Amazon Seller Central, primary, 2025.

Three further conventions are consistently reported and enforced: promotional wording such as best seller, free shipping or on sale is not permitted, decorative symbols including stars and trademark marks do not belong in a title, and ALL CAPS is not acceptable, the convention being to capitalise the first letter of each word except prepositions, conjunctions and articles.

Reported by Amalytix and Palmetto Digital Marketing Group, both third party, both 2026, and both note that non-compliance can lead to suppression from search results.

Why yours looks truncated

Two things get called truncation and the fixes differ. Display truncation has always happened. Search results cut long titles at a point that depends on the device, mobile far earlier than desktop, and reporting from Keywords.am and Enso Brands, both third party, both 2026, puts the mobile cut around 70 to 80 characters.

Amazon's own note is more careful: "the number of characters visible on screen may vary, depending on screen size". Either way, the front of the title was always doing the work.

Policy truncation is new. A title over the limit is replaced by Amazon's AI recommendation rather than displayed short, so the words that disappear are chosen by a model. That is why the 14-day brand owner review window matters more than it sounds.

How to tell if this is you

1. Count the characters on your top twenty ASINs, and check whether Item Highlights is populated. Anything over 75 outside media is in scope, and an empty highlights field on a shortened listing means 125 characters of indexed space sitting unused. A length formula in a sheet answers both faster than opening twenty listings.
2. Read the first 60 characters aloud, then look for any word used three times. If a shopper could not say what the product is from that opening, the title is arranged for a search engine rather than a person, and only prepositions, articles and conjunctions are exempt from the repetition rule.
3. Open the notifications and the listing update review queue. Suggested changes and the 14-day brand owner window surface there, and an unread notification approves by default.

What to check before you rewrite anything

There is a pull towards rewriting every title this afternoon, and it is worth slowing down, because a title carries indexing history and a hurried rewrite can cost terms you were ranking for.

1. Save the current title. Copy every existing title into a sheet first. Cheapest insurance in the exercise, and it takes ten minutes.
2. Note which search terms the ASIN converts on, and check the category style guide. Search Catalog Performance in Brand Analytics gives impressions, clicks and conversion per ASIN, and categories carry their own conventions on top of the general rule, apparel and beauty in particular.
3. Decide what the one differentiator is. Not three. One. There is room for the brand, the product and a single reason to choose it.

Rewriting a title into 75 characters

The route our team uses puts identity first, because the title now works as a label rather than a description.

1. Start with brand name and product type. Amazon recommends the brand stays in the Item name, and the product type is what makes the listing identifiable at a glance.
2. Add the single attribute that decides the purchase. Material, capacity, size, count or compatibility, whichever a buyer in that category checks first. This is the judgement call.
3. Move everything else into Item Highlights, and strip the promotional language and symbols. Use cases, secondary materials and compatibility belong in the 125 characters, and since Amazon says both fields feed search equally, nothing is lost. Best seller, free shipping and decorative characters were never permitted, and at 75 characters they are expensive too.
4. Submit the change, then check what actually published. The paths are Manage All Inventory for one listing, the Category Listings Report for a download pre-populated with your existing values, and the List Your Products tool for a bulk upload, which Amazon says typically updates within eight hours. A title can be accepted and then adjusted, so the live detail page is what counts.

Our own view on listing copy matters here, and it is not the popular one in this industry. A listing is a narrative rather than a keyword container, so the title carries the material, the quantity and the use case, the things a buyer was actually worried about.

On an account where our team rebuilt 12 SKUs across the US and UK on that principle, the listings indexed for more than 25 keywords within two weeks, conversion moved from 8% to 17% and two variants earned the Amazon's Choice badge. It converted because the pages answered the buyer.

That method is what our Amazon listing optimization service is built around, and the terms that no longer fit are what backend keywords exist for.

What this means for AI search

Amazon's shopping assistant Rufus generates answers from listing details, customer reviews and community questions, and Amazon describes it as trained on the product catalogue and those sources. Source: Amazon, primary.

That changes what a good title is for. A keyword-stuffed string was always poor reading and it is now poor input too, because a system answering "will this fit a small kitchen" wants a stated dimension, not the word kitchen three times.

Plain factual phrasing serves both audiences, which is rare in this work, and it raises the value of Item Highlights beyond indexing, since materials and use cases are what a shopper asks an assistant about.

Keeping titles compliant

1. Keep a title column in your catalogue sheet with a character count. Compliance becomes visible instead of discovered, and the twenty minutes it costs at creation is what prevents the whole situation later.
2. Review the notifications weekly, and re-read titles when the product changes. An unread suggestion becomes a published title, and a new size or pack count usually makes the old differentiator wrong.

What we would do first if this were our account

Export the catalogue and add a character count column, because that single step tells you in five minutes how many listings are exposed and which Amazon is likely to rewrite for you. Then take the top five ASINs by revenue and write the 75 characters by hand, brand, product, one differentiator, everything else in Item Highlights. Those five are worth doing carefully, since they carry the account.

We cannot promise a rewritten title will lift your ranking, because indexing depends on the whole listing and on what competitors do next. What we can tell you, before you spend anything, is which titles are non-compliant, which are wasting characters on wording Amazon does not permit, and which are about to be rewritten by a model on your behalf.

That is what the free, no-obligation audit covers, and where a listing has been suppressed rather than merely shortened, our suppressed listing page deals with that.

Related guides

• Optimising listings for Rufus and COSMO
• The product attributes AI search reads
• The nine checks for a low conversion rate

Common questions about Amazon title requirements