Feed attribute

description

Product description

The description attribute is the prose a channel uses to understand and display what a product is. On Shopify it maps from body_html, which is rich text, so it needs its HTML stripped and its entities decoded before it can be submitted.

Specification

Attribute: description
Data type: Text
Limit: 5,000 characters
Format: Plain text. No HTML tags, no promotional wording, no links, and no block capitals. Line breaks are permitted. Because the source is Shopify's rich text editor, decoding HTML entities matters as much as stripping tags: an ampersand left as & shows up literally in the listing.
Examples: A midweight merino crew neck knitted in a 12-gauge rib. Machine washable at 30 degrees.

Support by channel

How each channel treats description.

Channel	Requirement	Field name	Notes
Google Shopping	Required	description	HTML is rejected. Only the first 150 to 500 characters typically display.
Meta	Required	description
Microsoft Advertising	Required	description
Pinterest	Required	description
OpenAI	Required	description	Capped at 5,000 characters of plain text.

Frequently asked questions

Why is HTML showing up in my Google Shopping description?

Shopify stores product descriptions in body_html, which contains markup from the rich text editor. Mapped straight into the feed, that markup either gets rejected or rendered literally. The field needs the tags stripped and HTML entities decoded before submission.

How long should a feed description be?

The limit is 5,000 characters, but only the first few hundred are typically displayed. Lead with what the product actually is and its defining attributes, and keep specification detail further down where it still contributes to matching without cluttering the listing.

Can the description be the same for every variant?

Yes, and it usually should be. The description describes the product; the variant's distinguishing attributes belong in title, size, colour and the dedicated variant fields.

Related attributes

title The title attribute is the product name a channel shows in a listing and matches against search queries, which makes it the single highest-leverage field in a product feed. On Shopify it usually needs building from the product title plus the variant's options, because the raw product title alone does not describe an individual variant.

Related concepts

Product feed A product feed is a structured file listing every item a shop sells, with one row per purchasable item and one column per attribute the destination understands. Sales channels use it to build their own copy of a catalogue, which is why a feed is a translation of a shop's data into another system's schema rather than an export of it.

Primary sources

Channel specifications change. These are the official documents this page is based on.

Google: description attribute specification

Last reviewed 16 September 2026 View as markdown