Merchant Center reports “Excessive capitalization” when product titles contain excessively capitalized text; Google’s title specification says not to use capital letters for emphasis and that products not meeting its requirements are disapproved. Rewrite in sentence or title case, keeping capitals where Google’s title specification says they are appropriate, including abbreviations, phone numbers, countries and currency.
| Shown in Merchant Center as | Excessive capitalization |
|---|---|
| Attribute | title |
| Effect | Product disapproved |
| Where to find it | Products → Needs attention, then filter by this issue |
| Free check | Reported by the free feed check |
What Merchant Center means by “Excessive capitalization”
Google’s help page for the issue is about titles that contain excessively capitalized text, which “is frequently used in spam emails or by fishy retailers”, so people shopping online “may perceive your ads and listings to be less trustworthy than others”. The title specification says not to use capital letters for emphasis, while saying to use them when appropriate, including for abbreviations, phone numbers, countries and currency. It lists this among the requirements a product must meet to show, and says products that don’t follow them are disapproved. The description specification has the same rule and says not following its requirements can lead to disapprovals or limit the serving of ads. Google’s page on disapprovals for product data quality violations, written for the Google & YouTube app on Shopify, lists “Excessive capitalization” under “Common item-level issues”.
Why it happens
- Supplier catalogues. Wholesale price lists and ERP exports often store names in upper case, and the store imports them unchanged.
- Emphasis for the storefront. “LIMITED EDITION”, “NEW ARRIVAL”, “BEST SELLER” prepended to titles to catch the eye on a category page.
- Marketplace habits. Titles written for a marketplace where capitals were tolerated, reused for Google.
How to fix it
In Shopify
Bulk edit the Title column, or export products to CSV, convert the title column to title case in a spreadsheet, review the words that should stay capitalised (brand acronyms, model codes such as RTX4090), and re-import. Fix the source too: if titles arrive from a supplier feed, add the case conversion to that import so the next delivery does not undo the work.
In WooCommerce
Export via Products → Export, convert the Name and Description columns to sentence or title case, and re-import with “update existing products” checked. If a plugin generates titles from attributes, check its template: attribute values in caps propagate into every variation title.
In a CSV or XML feed
Convert the title column to title case and the description column to sentence case, then scan for acronyms and model codes to restore. Download the Needs attention CSV to confirm every affected id is covered. Keep the conversion in the export template rather than in the file, so it applies on every run.
How long until Merchant Center clears it
After making the changes, check that the issue is no longer listed on the Needs attention page. Google says it may take some time for the change to be reflected there.
What FeedRobin does about it
The free check flags titles that are all capitals with enough letters to be a sentence rather than a model code (“iPhone 15 PRO” passes, “NIKE AIR MAX 90 MEN’S RUNNING SHOE” does not), reported with promotional text under one heading. The fix card shows up to two of the titles, each above its de-shouted version without the promotional phrases the check reports: words with digits and one- or two-letter words are left as they are, so “RTX4090”, “XL” and “TV” survive; any visible character other than a letter, digit or apostrophe starts a new word. Acronyms of three or more letters, such as “ASUS” or “LED”, come back with only the first letter capital, the known limit of that suggestion; check them before you change the title.
Questions merchants ask
My supplier’s catalogue is all in capitals. Do I have to retype it?
Not by hand. Convert the column to title case in a spreadsheet, then restore the capitals Google’s title specification says are appropriate, such as abbreviations. The free check shows up to two of your titles, each above the version it suggests.
Is “NIKE” in capitals allowed?
Google’s title specification says to still use capitalization when it’s appropriate, including for abbreviations, phone numbers, countries and currency, for example “ADHD”, “UNICEF”, “1-555-CALL-NOW”, “UK” and “USD”. Neither this list nor the one on Google’s help page for the issue includes brand names.
Does this apply to descriptions too?
The rule does: Google’s description specification also says not to use capital letters for emphasis, and that not following its requirements can lead to disapprovals or limit the serving of ads. Google’s help page for the “Excessive capitalization” issue names only titles.
Sources
- How to fix: Excessive capitalization — Google Merchant Center Help
- Title [title] and structured title [structured_title] — Google Merchant Center Help
- Description [description] and structured description [structured_description] — Google Merchant Center Help
- Fixing Merchant Center disapprovals for product data quality violations — Google Merchant Center Help