Ian Sefferman: Google Play ranking algorithm pays more attention to app ratings

As we all know, the search results and popular list rankings of app stores generally take app ratings into consideration. This not only helps to push up the app rankings, but also makes it easier for users to filter out irrelevant products and find the apps they need.

But we only know that ratings will affect the display position and ranking of app search results, but do we know how it affects the display position of app search results?

iOS App Store

Search ranking

One would intuitively think that the higher an app’s rating, the higher it would rank in search results, and this is a trend we found in our data, but there are some exceptions.

search_results_ios(from MobileDevHQ)

In the iTunes App Store, the higher the ranking of apps in the search results, the higher the ratings. We randomly selected three levels of search fields: "simple", "medium" and "highly competitive" for investigation. Here, "simple" search fields mean that its search results are between 1-25, "medium" fields have 26-100 search results, and "highly competitive" fields have more than 101 search results. Then we calculated the ratings of apps ranked 1 to 10, and found that the ratings of apps began to drop sharply from the 8th place.

We originally thought that the top 10 apps in the search results for these three fields were the apps with the highest ratings and the best matches for the keywords. However, the data shows that if the search is performed in the "Simple" field, the rating of the 10th-ranked app may be as low as 1.09 points. This low score is not commensurate with its high search ranking position. And from the search results of the "Highly Competitive" field, the rating of the 10th-ranked app may be as low as around 2 points (Game State Note: The original data was taken before Apple launched the Chomp Update, an initiative that affects the ranking of iTunes App Store apps).

Popular list ranking

More surprisingly, the ranking of the iOS Top Charts also reflects a similar situation. This shows that the apps at the top of the charts do not necessarily have high rating scores. People usually think that in addition to downloads, the Top Charts will also consider rating scores as a ranking factor, but our data does not reflect this result.

top_charts_ios (from MobileDevHQ)

This shows that ratings are not the decisive factor. They certainly play some role, but their influence is far less than other factors such as download volume.

Google Play

Search ranking

We also conducted the same analysis on Google Play and found that the top 10 apps in the search results for the "simple", "medium" or "highly competitive" fields all had high ratings, and there was no abnormal decline in app ratings like the iTunes App Store. We believe this reflects that Google Play attaches more importance to app ratings in search rankings than the iTunes App Store.

search_rankings_google_play(from MobileDevHQ)

From this we can conclude that high-rated/high-quality apps are generally more likely to appear at the top of Google Play search results. The Google Play search algorithm is more conducive to improving the exposure of high-quality apps.

Popular list ranking

top_charts_google_play(from MobileDevHQ)

The statistics of Google Play's popular charts also reflect the same trend, that is, the higher the rating of the app, the greater the chance of being promoted to the top of the popular charts. Although the rating is not the only factor for an app to be promoted to the top of the charts, it is one of the necessary factors.

in conclusion

Apps that rank high in both search results and popular charts generally have higher rating scores, and this trend is more obvious in Google Play than in the iTunes App Store.

via: gameboom