Merchant Center invalid value [title] and text too long: how to fix both

Titles are the most-read field in a Shopping listing, and the one stores most often stuff with promotion or keywords. Google flags two related problems: promotional or malformed titles, and titles that run past the limits. This guide covers both. For writing better titles beyond clearing errors, see the product title SEO guide, and for other issues the disapprovals guide.

How the issue appears

In Products, then Needs attention, look for "Invalid value [title]" and "Text too long". Google's invalid title page says to give an accurate, concise description and avoid promotional text such as "free shipping", all capitals and other gimmicks. The text too long page says the title, description or both exceed the maximum and are being truncated.

What triggers it

• Promotional phrases in the title: "free shipping", "sale", "best price".
• All-capital titles.
• Repeated keywords, symbols or emoji used for emphasis.
• Variant products sharing the same title with no colour or size.
• Titles longer than 150 characters, or descriptions over 5,000.
• Titles that begin with the brand repeated, bury the product type or put the key attribute at the end.

How to find affected items

1. Filter Needs attention by each issue and download the CSVs.
2. In a spreadsheet, add a character length column for the title. Sort descending.
3. Search for banned phrases: "free", "sale", "%", "off", "best".
4. Find all-capital titles by comparing the title to its uppercase version.
5. Group duplicates by title to find variants with no distinguishing detail.

Fix steps for Shopify

1. Edit the product title in admin, or if you do not want to change your storefront title, use a feed app's title rules to build the Google title separately.
2. Remove promotional wording from the title field. Put promotions in the description or in sale price and promotion settings.
3. Include colour or size in variant titles where your feed app supports it.
4. For many products, export, fix the Title column and re-import. Our CSV import errors guide covers the format.
5. Check the Google & YouTube app after the next sync.

Fix steps for other platforms and feeds

• Build the feed title from attributes: brand, product type, key attribute, colour, size. A formula applied across the feed beats hand-editing.
• Keep it under 70 characters where possible, since that is roughly what is displayed, and certainly under the 150 limit in the product data specification.
• Put distinctive attributes first, per Google's guidance.
• Use sentence or title case, not all capitals.
• Add a separate [title] for each variant so the colour or size is visible.
• Truncate descriptions at 5,000 characters, cleanly at a sentence break.

An example, before and after:

Before: BEST PRICE!! Mens Running Shoes Free Shipping SALE Sneakers Trainers Gym Walking
After:  Nike Pegasus 41 Men's Road Running Shoes, Black, Size 9

Re-review and recrawl expectations

Edited titles are typically reprocessed within a day or two. A title issue is usually a data-only check, so it often clears without a landing page recrawl. If it persists, look for a second violation such as promotional text in the description.

Prevention

• Use a title template per category so every product follows the same order.
• Block promotional words with a feed rule or import validation.
• Review titles of new suppliers before upload.
• Check length when titles are generated by AI or merged from several fields.

When to do it yourself and when to hand it off

Shortening or cleaning up a dozen titles is a reasonable job to do yourself, as long as the new titles still describe the product accurately.

Hand it off when titles come straight from a supplier file and the whole catalog needs a consistent, rule-based rewrite. Our feed management service covers setup and clean-up: the AI engine does the volume, a person reviews every output, and you approve before anything goes live. We work through a staff or collaborator account you can remove, never your passwords. Feeds start from ₹7,999 / $299 / £239 / A$449 per channel, with a fixed quote after we inspect your files, and turnaround is from 48 hours for eligible projects; turnaround depends on scope, catalog complexity and the quality of the data and access we receive. You can ask for the free 10-product sample if the project is a fit.