Fix “Title truncated”: product titles over 150 characters in Merchant Center

Short answer. Merchant Center warns that a title has been truncated when it exceeds 150 characters; Google cuts it to fit rather than disapproving the product. Shorten the title and put the most important details first: product name, brand, then the attribute that distinguishes this variant.

What Merchant Center means by “Title truncated”

The title specification allows 1 to 150 characters and says what happens beyond that: “If your title doesn’t fit within the maximum character limit, Google will truncate it to fit. You’ll receive a warning indicating that the title has been truncated.” The product is not disapproved; it runs with the first 150 characters as its title.

The problem is what gets cut. Over-long titles are usually built by concatenation, and the concatenation puts the variant’s colour, size or model at the end, after the category, the material and the marketing phrase. Those are the words a shopper types. In the ad itself Google shows far fewer characters still, so the practical limit is closer to 70 for the words that need to be seen.

Why it happens

• Concatenated templates. Product name + every option value + category + brand, assembled by the export.
• Specification sheets as titles: dimensions, materials and compatibility lists in the name.
• Keyword stuffing from a storefront SEO habit.
• Variation titles in WooCommerce, which append each attribute to the parent name.

How to fix it

In Shopify

Shopify titles are usually short; the length comes from feed tools that append option names. Use a template of the form brand · product · distinguishing attribute, put the attribute shoppers search for first (colour and size for apparel, model and capacity for electronics), and drop the category. Keep the title under 150 and the important words in the first 70.

In WooCommerce

Variation titles are generated as “Product name - Attribute, Attribute”; a product with four attributes overflows quickly. Our free connector sends the variation’s name as WooCommerce builds it, so shorten the product name and reduce the attributes used for variations to the ones that matter. Alternatively, set a short custom title per variation where your setup allows.

In a CSV or XML feed

Cut titles to 150 characters at a word boundary, after reordering so the distinguishing words come first; cutting first and reordering second loses the words you were trying to keep. Do not append an ellipsis, which spends three characters and tells the shopper nothing. Check the Needs attention CSV to see which ids Google truncated and by how much.

How long until Merchant Center clears it

A shortened title replaces the truncated one on the next fetch, and the warning disappears within 24–72 hours. Since the product was never disapproved, nothing else changes except what Google can now match and display.

What FeedRobin does about it

The free check counts titles over Google’s 150-character limit and shows the repair in the fix preview: the title cut to the limit at a word boundary, with any promotional text removed first so the cut keeps the words that describe the product rather than the ones selling it. In the feeds we serve, title templates put brand, product and the key attribute first and render each channel’s length limit, so one title works for Google’s 150 and for the channels that allow less.

Sources

• Title [title] and structured title [structured_title] — Google Merchant Center Help
• Product data specification — Google Merchant Center Help