Today I discovered something disturbing about the AppStore search result. I used to get a listing of all my apps when I search for my developer entry name “mysteryfiles.nl”. So like always I type in the name and this time…my apps aren’t in the first search results. Look I’m a small time developer and don’t have tons of app downloads and ratings. I don’t do false advertisement, fake reviews, paid downloads or all the other stuff. And seeing someone else getting called first for the results of your own freaking name disturbs me…
On the iPad Results my apps are only showed on the second page of the results. On the iPhone Results my first app is Vitamins 101 in position 5. So Apple did something with their search ranking system. You can clearly see this with the first four apps in the iPhone Results, they have hundreds of ratings and mine have none. Does this mean that Vitamins 101 has no downloads & ratings? When I tap on it, the ratings sections shows nothing. But when I press the previous version, then I see my precious 48 ratings.
I don’t like the ratings system, with current app version having more influence on search results. As a small time developers it means whenever you update your apps: you lose your app ratings and have to hope, wish & pray that your app will be rated by someone. App visibility & ranking depends on app ratings nowadays.
Anyways I still can’t dismiss the uncomfortable feeling from searching for my own developer name and not seeing your own apps show up as the first results. This is wrong right? It smells fishy…