How App Store Ranking Actually Works

Apple does not publish its ranking formula, but the inputs are well established from Apple''s own developer guidance and from watching thousands of listings move. There are only a handful of levers, and two of them matter far more than the rest.

The inputs that move rank

• Keyword relevance — whether the term appears in your name, subtitle, keyword field or in-app purchase names. This decides whether you appear at all.
• Download velocity — downloads in a recent window, not lifetime total. This decides how high.
• Conversion rate — how many people who see your listing install it. A listing that converts well gets shown more.
• Retention and engagement — apps people keep and open rank above apps people delete.
• Ratings and reviews — both the average and the volume, and recency counts.
• Crash rate — a technically unstable app is suppressed.

Why velocity beats everything else

Two apps with identical metadata will not rank the same if one is getting fifty installs a day and the other five. This is why a launch concentrated into a short window outperforms the same number of downloads spread over months, and why re-launch pushes work.

What you can influence this week

1. Conversion rate. The first two screenshots and the icon are what most people judge. Improving them raises installs from the traffic you already have, which then raises rank — a compounding effect.
2. Ratings. Ask for the review in-app at a moment of success, using Apple''s native prompt. Going from 3.8 to 4.5 stars changes both rank and conversion.
3. Relevance. Make sure the terms you want are actually in an indexed field. Plenty of apps simply are not eligible for the searches they care about.
4. Stability. Fix crashes before chasing marketing. Crash rate is one of the few inputs that can actively hold you down.

What does not work

Stuffing keywords into the long description (not indexed on the App Store). Buying installs — Apple detects unnatural velocity and the accounts behind it, and the penalty is worse than the gain. Repeating the same word across name, subtitle and keyword field, which wastes characters that could be earning you a second phrase.

Charts versus search

Top-chart position is almost entirely download velocity within a category. Search position is relevance first, then the quality signals above. Most small apps get more from search than from ever troubling the charts, so put your effort there.

Give it time

Metadata changes ship with an update and take a few days to be re-indexed, then a couple of weeks to settle. Judge any change on a fortnight, not a weekend.

Every launch we run goes live with the indexed fields filled properly, a stable build and a review prompt in place. Book a free launch review and we will tell you where your listing is losing rank.

Related reading: App Store listing optimisation and the launch checklist.