Does anyone know what (if any) is the rhyme or reason that determines the placement of an App in the App Store keyword search results?
My App, a Venice City Guide, is very keyword specific and, frankly, doesn't do a ton of cool stuff like a game. Accordingly, I never expect to see it in the Top 100 of any category.
Nevertheless, in the six days that it's been on the App store, I've had about 250 downloads. Which I consider pretty good! (Sadly mostly coming during a 12 hour period when I made the App free so that my associates overseas could download it. *That promo codes are only good in US App store is a whole other issue!*)
I've noticed that the position of my App often changes in Keyword search results. Once, for the Keyword "Venice" it traveled to number one on the list and then back down to the bottom in one days time.
Is the placement of the App in keyword search results any indication of downloads, or maybe clicks, during a time frame?
I asked a similar question and got no feedback. I suspect it is a combination not just of downloads or actual keyword match, but also on # ratings and quality of ratings. Can anyone confirm this?
In my experience I think the number of downloads certainly plays a role in weighting the results, though I don't think it's the deciding factor. It would be interesting to know for sure.
I would like to know too! I imagine that it has something to do with views or clicks (e.g. something that tells Apple something about its relevancy to a keyword search.) I read the documentation from Apple but came away clueless.
Your position when you come up should be your relative popularity (download rate we think per day) against all apps that also use the same keywords for search. For very low traffic terms, its very easy to move massive amounts in the search because only a couple downloads of a competitor may ratchet them up to the top for that search term. If no one else searches and buys on that term in the next couple of days - they will stay there.
In short, keywords / name relevance, price tier, ratings, and popularity. If you want to know more, check out my post on this topic. I've added some examples to really drive the point home.
Placement in iTunes Search Results
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