[Someone1234]

While I don't care either way if this exists or not, I do worry that this will further result in Google ignoring the "discoverability" problem in the Google Play app store.

Because if they improve discoverability for free, then who will buy their adverts? The worse the store is at pointing you at the correct apps, the more ads people will buy (so less work for them and more $$$, win/win).

It isn't helped by how large of a stranglehold Google has gained on the Android ecosystem. Amazon is the next largest, but still tiny by comparison. Piracy might outnumber Amazon frankly.

[username223]

I don't own an Android phone, but I'm surprised that Google Play has lousy search. I expect the Apple App Store to have useless search, because Apple isn't a search company, but I'd figure Google had that part solved. This sounds like at least perverse incentives, and possibly a plain old shake-down: making their search worse, and/or burying specific results, directly makes them money. It reminds me of the bad old days of "portals," before someone made an unbiased, fast search engine called "Google."

[speeder]

I make apps for Android and iOS, and made my first release 2 or 3 years ago (don't remember the precise date).

Back then, iOS search was purely utter crap, finding totally unrelated things (including notoriously if you searched google maps, you would not find it... apple hardcoded the search for google maps to return google maps after all the internet poking fun at them).

And Android search was awesome, some keyword tweaking and we would soar in searches that were relevant to us (ie: people really looking for the sort of product we offer).

Then iOS made the first "discoverability improvement" change that pissed us off... they changed the interface so that instead of showing a list of results, it started to show more detailed results, but much less per page (back then some devices showed only 2 results per page depending on the orientation)

meaning that for us that were in position 50 in searches, we went from being on the fifth "finger slide" of the user, to be on the 200, 300... meaning our users on iOS sunk, fast.

Still, Android was our saviour then... so we stuck with Android (we still make iOS stuff ,but don't expect much from it).

Then it was google turn do do things, they started to "improve" their search, they "improved" so much, that now searching our company name (that is very unique), sometimes show competitors apps in first place instead.

Searching the exact name of our apps frequently don't work anymore either (back "then", 2 years ago, it searching for another app name of yours was a API usage example when you wanted to link from one app to another).

So... yep, both Google and Apple stealthly make discoverability worse, instead of better.

Now most of our income comes from third-party stores, not iTunes or Google Play

[dazzla]

If you don't mind sharing which 3rd party stores do you have success with? I have tried Amazon with pretty much no success so I've assumed if they can't do it no one can.

[speeder]

Amazon is our WORST store.

We are in Samsung store (roughly same performacne as google play), several carrier stores (separated they are tiny, summed they are a good income), and we have some deals with some startups that are trying new app distribution methods, many of those startups also have deals with carriers, so we are in some carriers twice.

Anyway, our income right now looks like as if it came from dumbphone era: most of it coming from carriers, directly or indirectly.

Also we are in Yandex store, nothing impressive in terms of revenue, but stupid easy to get into (they purpusefully allow use of google play APIs, and upload methods, and whatnot... if you ever worked with google play, uploading to Yandex is VERY easy).

EDIT: Making things clearer on Amazon, they are REALLY the worst, sometimes months go by without even a single free download.

[benologist]

http://i.imgur.com/le8aRmB.png

I remember finding your games here on HN quite some time ago, my 3 year old can now do your animated jigsaws herself and currently loves the game with the russian dolls. My email in my profile is also my Skype if you want to chat, maybe we can help each other out - all my downloads are for traditional jigsaws and an older audience, with children and grandchildren.

[benologist]

Similar position, 2 years in, 2% of our revenue last year came from Play and we're not even on iTunes yet.

For me it wasn't just hard before, it was also an early stage product and my first time publishing on the appstore. Revisiting the Play Store this year and making it my primary focus has been a very different story, you might find that as well with all your experience.

[raphael_l]

Do you have a source for the "Appstore Google Maps" debacle? I haven't heard that one before even though I owned a iPhone two/three years ago, and it seems very interesting!

[speeder]

I am trying to find it, but more recent stuff is now swamping google instead, I found some personal blogs referencing it, but not the original posts (That had the hilarious pictures of the search results for "google maps" that didn't include google maps).

This was shortly after Google Maps official release in response to the crap mandatory Apple Maps.

almost one year later it happened again, but this time another explanation was given:

That Google Maps was updating to 2.0 and removing the old app and put a new one, and that during the update you could not find it, and also that itunes has several separate search servers and you had to wait for them to synch with each other.

That second story I just found out, while looking for the first, so I dunno how true it is.

[droidist2]

> now searching our company name (that is very unique), sometimes show competitors apps in first place instead.

Are your competitors using your app's name in their description? If so, I believe this is against the Terms of Service.

[mss6989]

For the consumer, discoverability isn't a problem. The download numbers are through the roof, and continue to grow year over year.

For the publisher/developer, discoverability is a challenge. There are certainly steps that you can take to improve your app store presence (keywords in titles, on point descriptions, etc.). So much of the app marketplace depends on word-of-mouth marketing. Build a good app, and people will find you...regardless of how app store search works.

[droidist2]

> For the consumer, discoverability isn't a problem.

Isn't this like saying that for listeners of Top 40 radio stations music discovery isn't a problem?

[VanillaCafe]

> I do worry that this will further result in Google ignoring the "discoverability" problem in the Google Play app store.

Do you think if Google started including ads in their search results, it would affect the discoverability problem of non-sponsored web pages?