Amazon crack down on ASIN Titles

Amazon have announced on their US site that they will be cracking down on ASIN titles. If you titles don’t comply with Amazon’s product title requirements then they will suppress your ASINs – Put bluntly, if your ASIN Titles aren’t up to scratch then your products simply won’t appear on Amazon.com.

“Starting July 22, 2019, Amazon will suppress ASINs from Amazon Search whose titles do not comply with Amazon’s product title requirements. This is because our research shows that the ASIN titles that violate our policies result in poor customer experience. Please review Amazon’s FBA Product Title Requirements prior to July 15, 2019 to verify that your current titles meet our guidelines.”
– Amazon.com

Amazon ASIN Titles that will suppressed

Amazon expanded on the announcement specifying the use cases they are aiming to suppress – the most blatant abuse of titles.

• Title containing promotional keywords and phrases (for example, free shipping, 100% quality guaranteed, etc.)
• Title containing non-readable characters including emojis.
• Title exceeding more than 200 characters.
• Title not containing any product identifying information (no product type name and no product characteristics – for example, a single word title such as N/A)

Amazon ASIN Titles Best Practice

Amazon give the following guidance on what makes a great title and what’s not allowed. (We looked at a couple of Amazon products in the image above and even they don’t strictly follow best practise, so it’s not easy to be perfect!)

ASIN Titles Length

• Use 50 characters maximum as a general rule. However some product categories allow longer titles, so be sure to follow category-specific instructions.

ASIN Titles Capitalization

• Capitalize the first letter of each word.
• Do not use ALL CAPS.
• Conjunctions (and, or, for) and articles (the, a, an) should not be capitalized.
• Don’t capitalize prepositions with fewer than five letters (in, on, over, with).

ASIN Titles Numbers and symbols

• Use numerals (2 instead of two)
• Spell out measurements ( 6 inches not 6″ )
• Don’t use symbols, such as ~ ! * $ ?
• Don’t use Type 1 High ASCII characters (Æ, ©, ô, etc.)

ASIN Titles Product information

• Include the size and color in “child” ASINs for variations
• Don’t include price or promotional messages, such as “sale” or “free ship”
• Don’t use subjective commentary, such as “Hot Item” or “Best Seller”
• Your merchant name for Brand or Manufacturer information should not be included, unless your product is Private Label

ASIN Titles for variation relationships

In Variation Relationships, only the title of the parent ASIN is shown on the detail page. The title for the selected child ASIN will appear once the ASIN is added to the customer’s cart, so it is important to include the variation attributes (such as size and color) in the title for the child ASIN.

• Example parent: Crocs Beach Clog
• Example child: Crocs Beach Clog, Lime, Medium (Women’s 8-9 M US/Men’s 6-7 M US)