Ranked app has disappeared on update from top entertainment

Not sure where to ask this in the forum, and the closest thing is in this section …

I had an app on a high and visible position in the entertainment category. I didn’t update the outstanding image and brief description that got a few months ago, three days ago I did it and the app has disappeared from the top and it’s not ranked neither appear in any position, I knew that there hadn’t to upgrade anything … Anyone know what happened?

The app is going down in downloads… 8 months ago the same with other app, 800 downloads daily, and suddenly 20-30, the app now is dead. What can I do?? :frowning:

That has happened to me as well. Anyone else know whats going on?

So, best option is not doing update at all ? Can someone confirm this?
Yours apps are quite old as I assume…
Please track your apps in App Annie App Store Stats | Google Play Top App Charts United States - Overall

The app has 1 year old.

Example in Spain store:

The day I updated… bye bye

I updated the app because it came on the radio and I wanted to take advantage… Damn time that I did…

how long this happened?

If it was missing from the chart for a day then based from my experience it will come back to its original position

I updated the description and the image last friday 13 as you can see in the chart… 5 days… today, my admob impressions are the worst in months for that app…

This same thing happened to me on Amazon app store. I updated one of my popular apps (made it WAY better) and slightly changed the description and it completely killed it. It went from a least 100 paid DL’s a day to maybe 10 a week, literally overnight. I have no idea why it made that big of a difference but it never recovered after months and I will NEVER do that again…

I hope the update process is not following the IOS Appstore path where updating messes everything up, specially for indie devs…

@Zapata What have you changed? Maybe you removed some crucial keyword?

But that should cause progressive loss of ranking, not sudden.

Or maybe you added to many keywords and triggered some alert?
Maybe your app has been removed from top lists and is waiting for human review?

Also, have you checked keywords rankings? Have you also lost your place?

Are you sure it’s related to that change you made? All my apps on Amazon AppStore - even those not updated - had such drop last year. And they’ve never recovered. I tried changing description to check how it affects things there and have noticed no change as if it was doing nothing to the position in the AppStore. I don’t know how their search works, maybe by using random function. :wink:

I only added the new short description and a principal image. I didn’t change anything else. One hour later, the app disappeared from top, I would understand for other reason a progressive loss of ranking, but not for a simple update. The keyword ranking hasn’t any changes at all, like always.

In may of last year another of my apps with a lots of daily downloads disappeared from all top countries, died in a few days without any changes this time.

The best part is that the rival app is going up since then…

I’m pretty positive, at least as far as Amazon is concerned but I haven’t experienced this on GP yet. My other apps haven’t had any major swings in traffic like that and continue to grow actually. I basically made the app a lot better than it was, updated the description and screenshots, and this happened immediately.
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I’m still mad about it, that app was doing well for years and now it’s deader than dead on amazon only. I spent time upgrading it for the Christmas rush and it backfired right in my face, so from now on if it is consistent, I’m not changing even one word in the description. I think it has something to do with the ranking algorithm. Learned my lesson.

Have you tried editing something again? Maybe changing, google runs some alghoritm to analyze keywords, rankings etc. Maybe you had some bad luck and during your edition, there were some bug or smth? Maybe you can trigger it again.

Also, can you post link to your app? Maybe we can see something you don’t see.

Also, have you contacted Google about that??

The day after I updated the .apk (for the possibility of trigger something) and nothing happened.

There is a real contact for this kind of matters with Google??

In your developer console, there should be question mark in top right side of screen. Click it, there should be 2 options for contact - live chat and email.

I contacted with them… Now waiting to see …

What I did was change apk and listing screenshots, no change to description text.

here is my drop, its sucks because I hit #3 spot in that country and I dropped out of it, looks like day after.

They have answered my email… and nothing. The usual “Please note that with more apps being added to Google Play every day and regular updates to the Google Play search algorithm, an app’s position can change in search results from time to time.” I don’t buy it, ****.

It looks like GP is treating updated app like new one without “new app” bonus.
Can someone else prove that after updated theirs app ranking remains?

I updated another app 2 days before this app and doing the same things, normal behavior, nothing happens. All right.