Ranking change after the 5th of August 2013 due to Google algorithm change ?

Hi Guys

There’s an announcement on the google Play developer console which states -

We have updated our stats algorithm to better identify active devices. This update improves the accuracy of the installation metrics for Current installs by device (formerly “Active device installs”) and Current installs by user (formerly “Active user installs”). You may notice changes in some of the metrics associated with your app. Many apps will be affected by this change, however we expect a difference of less than 2% for most apps. The anticipated algorithm update happened on August 5th 2013.

On the 5th I saw a large drop in my search rankings. On the 4th I was ranking around 60th, on the 5th it went to around 90th and I’m currently at around 120th ! A few of my competitors have suffered a drop as well but not all. Some seem to have gone up. I was slowing climbing up the charts before the 5th now I sliding down :- (

So some questions

(a) Is anyone else seeing this ?
(B) Can anyone shed any light on what the algorithm change is / what the new factors are affecting search rankings ?

Thanks

Sorry to hear that, both of my apps went up in the rankings after the change. However, i havent seen any increase in the downloads…

http://forums.makingmoneywithandroid.com/marketing-methods/2171-play-store-rank-problem.html

From 45 to 126…

Basically what it means is if you uninstalled rate is higher than new installs, you will be pushed down, becoz your total download would be like 1 million but active installs are less than 10000.

Those apps which were launched a few years back and have millions of total installs but now no more active users will suffer. This change is actually good for new apps who can now equally compete with the old apps.

Thanks god for the change - for some keywords my app went up like from 90th place to 10th place. For others of course not…However, it helped me to increase downloads cca 1.5-2x, whats great.

Btw I also think, that it affected good, quality apps which were on market for months, but has so many (mostly old) competitors that it was almost impossible to go up. For example my app has a lot of competitors, but in top 20 of my competitors all of them except 2 or 3 were not even closely as good as mine (they were ugly, un-intuitive, crashing…). I tried all of them, and sometimes I said Oh, my god, how is this possible that this crappy ugly app is on top. It was very frustrating to see, that MUCH WORSE apps in every aspect, are MUCH HIGHER than mine just because they came earlier and once upon a time they were maybe good, but not now. Also few of them were not updated maybe 1 year or so, some more! I just didn’t understand why for the hell they are so high.

Now, from 20 of my top competitors most of them fall down (finaly - they were just not good apps) - and just the good ones stayed on top - so now it is, as it should! So for me it’s step into good direction and absolutely fair for new, good apps. Of course bad for apps, which are on top just because of inertia and in reality they were good 2-3 years ago but not now. Quality apps on top weren’t affected as I can see. And that’s right :slight_smile:

I don’t see much difference despite having some old games that were popular long time ago, but I haven’t checked ranks - I only monitor installs and revenue. My main game is slowly declining but it’s normal, it was already on decline anyway.

Most of the website’s rankings changed after the google algorithm update… My site was also affected by it… But, thanks to the SEORECOVERY services… It helped me to recover my site… And now my site ranks on the first page on google search engine…

that’s a pretty sneaky try @James

So obvious…