My game periodically looses keyword ranking on Google Play

Here’s my free game https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.optimumit.savethefrog that’s been on Google Play for about six months. The game’s hero is a frog, so obviously the keyword I’m trying to rank for is ‘Frog’.

I’ve been playing with ASO in the games description, title and tagline. The highest rank I ever got to was #73. :frowning: Not a very good result.

But lately, for the last two months or so, approximately every two weeks my app rank for keyword ‘Frog’ goes down to >300 for 2-3 days and then returns back to the usual #80… WTF :mad:

Does it happen to anyone else? any ideas why?

All this happen with no app updates and no changes to description.

It seems to be normal, because this happens to us well, all the time, over and over. Must be an error on googles side.
Isn’t it pretty cool though? You can check your downloads on that day when your keyword dropped and if there is no impact at all you know that your keyword is utterly useless.

No, this is not normal and here is the thing.

Do you check the rankings on your browser/dekstop too?

If yes then you should notice that rankings will be different for “frog” and “Frog”
however if you check the ranks via the market on the phone, capitalization of the words won’t make any difference.

thanks StevePof…

Well ok, it’s good to know I’m not singled out by Google for this keyword dropping feature. Still pretty annoying.

Speaking of ASO… can anyone please explain to me why apps with less downloads, less reviews, less positive reviews, less no of keyword ‘frog’ in the description rank higher than my game?

Hi optimumit
Well you should read my answer above to check out if that’s the case with you.

Now talking about rankings, ASO isn’t just about downloads ,reviews and keywords,it is much more than that.
(I have consistently ranked my app at #5 for music player and I will rank it at #1 soon,I will make a thread here before hand that I will be ranking it higher soon .The reason why I am not doing it right now is because i am getting some negative feedback and the ratings are dropping,so i want to fix the bug first before I get more downloads. )

If capital letter or not, doesn’t make any difference to me.
Just took a random app for this screen, I guess this is what he means. A sudden drop for only one day.

Why are you using a third party rank checker?
I keep a track of all the keywords myself and I note down the date whenever I see a change in the rank.
Most of the changes come on Monday (according to USA Pacific Time)

I don’t take it that seriously, actually, because I only make games. Keyword rank is not as important for me. I’m getting downloads by another strategy.

@StevePof,

Yes, that’s what I mean. For me it usually lasts a couple of days.

@ankit662003,

I’ve just checked ‘frog’ vs ‘Frog’ in the browser on my pc and rankings are the same. On Google Play app on the phone I’m currently 136th for ‘Frog’ and 137th for ‘Frog’
This is strange, I would have thought that Google would ignore letter case in rankings.

Paid or Free?

Mostly the difference is small over google play.
But I have seen huge differences over the browser.
And only the first letter matters,if it is capitalized or not.

I would suggest doing things manually ,you come to know about hundreds of such things which can be used to rank your apps higher.

Free, but I can’t reveal it, because it’s too competitive. I can only give a hint. It has something to do with similar apps lists from other games. There is a way to get in their lists if you want to. We currently generate 11.000 downloads per day with this method.

Haha,we both are offering services here

I’ll think about it. Maybe I will post a report about it if I can reach 1 million downloads.

I will reach 1 million in 22 days :slight_smile:
Have 780k downloads,getting 10k a day :smiley:

To both of you, beware google checks the app manually for any bad reports when it enters 1Million club. Clean your ass before entering that club. But once you enter it, you are in a different world.

I that a proven fact? Don’t scare me. I’m actually ashamed of myself by reading my spammy description.

yes dear, i have experienced it myself and also seen fellow developers experience it. May be when u are at 800K, clean it a bit

My experience: just somewhere before I am getting my first 1m downloads, I get warning for violating keyword spam policy. I reduced the keywords, and remove any referral to popular app after that. My app is staying but downloads reduced a lot.

I’ve been trying to “crack the code” of doing this for months. A lot of potential there