Amazon Title Requirements Change 2025: What Sellers Need To Know

Amazon just announced a major update to its product title policy, and if you’re a seller, this could mean big changes for you. Some of you might have to tweak hundreds of listings in the coming weeks to stay in compliance.

With the new rules going into effect January 21, 2025, time is tight. Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s happening and how it might affect your business.

The New Amazon Title Policy Breakdown

Amazon is revamping its approach to product titles to make them shorter, clearer, and more customer-friendly. Here are the key points you need to know:

✅ Character Limit:

Titles may not exceed 200 characters (including spaces) for most product categories.

If you’re wondering, “Hasn’t that always been the case?”—not quite. Amazon has been inconsistent on this. Some categories allowed up to 250 characters, even 400 in fine print. But now, the limit of 200 is official across the board.

✅ Restrictions on Special Characters:

You can no longer include special characters like exclamation marks (!), dollar signs ($), question marks (?), underscores (_), “ampersands” (&), or directional arrows (↑)—unless those characters are part of your brand name.

✅ No Word Repetition:

Here’s the kicker—titles can’t repeat the same word more than twice. This does not apply to minor words like “a,” “the,” or “and,” but for key terms, like “coffin shelf” or “decor,” you’ll have to choose your phrasing carefully.

This rule aims to curb keyword stuffing, ensuring cleaner, more readable titles for customers.

Amazon says these changes focus on improving customer confidence by eliminating clutter and redundancy in product listings. Even if this feels like a pain to manage, it’s worth noting that clean, concise titles tend to convert better.

Why Sellers Should Be Concerned?

By January 21, 2025, Amazon will start enforcing these changes with bots scanning titles. If your listing is flagged as non-compliant, you could face action such as title edits, suppression, or worse—your listing being pulled down.

The key point? If you edit your title to include repeat words or excess characters after the update, Amazon’s system might block those changes outright. And if you don’t act on suggested edits or violations within 14 days, Amazon could automatically update your listing based on their AI recommendations, which may not reflect your preferences.

For sellers who rely heavily on optimized titles for search relevance, this could be a big adjustment. Amazon’s update will force all of us to prioritize the essentials and be strategic with how we position keywords.

What Should You Do Right Now?

This announcement gives you a very short window—just a little over two weeks—to prepare. Here’s how you can take action immediately:

1. Audit Your Listings
Check all of your existing product titles. Start with your most important (high-traffic or high-converting) listings and move down the priority list. Look for:

✔ Titles over 200 characters

✔ Repeated keywords

✔ Any prohibited special characters

2. Monitor Amazon’s Review Updates Page
Make it a habit to check the Review Listing Updates section in Seller Central. If Amazon suggests changes to a title, you’ll have a limited window to approve, reject, or revise them before the AI enforces them automatically.

3. Stay Flexible and Prepared
Sometimes, Amazon actively updates titles itself, and sellers often miss the chance to intervene if they’re unaware. Bookmark the listings that matter most and check them regularly to avoid surprises.