Google search on Android marketplace is awful

by megablast • 15 years ago

44 16 15 years ago

You can view the blog entry here, my server is rubbish:

http://ipadtravelguides.blogspot.com/2011/08/google-not-so-great-at-search.html

Funnnny2• 15 years ago

The author complain that when he search his own app name, his app listed at number 20. I can't find any wrong about it, I would not trust or want an app listed in the top, when it has only 1-5 install and 0 rating. Google knows how to do search, and they know the name is not all.

martingordon• 15 years ago

I can't get to the article, but if the user is searching for a proper name and there is an exact match, it should rank above all other matches.

Just because Google does search well in many areas doesn't mean they put the time into doing search well everywhere. Go search your Gmail for "info" or "doc" and tell me how many results you get that match "information" or "document".

aw3c2• 15 years ago

He searches for ‘USA Travel Guide" (without quotation marks). For the same string but with quotation marks his app is the first result.

megablast4• 15 years ago

That is not the problem I have, the problem I have, and why I wrote the article, is that the other results are awful, and have nothing to do with what I search for, 'USA Travel Guides'. Since I only release my app last week, I have no problem with my app being down in the results.

Doing this search on android marketplace: https://market.android.com/search?q=usa+travel+guide

Produced a few non travel guides, and most of the travel guides listed are for countries other than the USA. This was my gripe. Surely a new app, with no ratings should be higher in the list that a travel guide for India or Dublin?

angryasian• 15 years ago

when I do a literal search your app comes first

https://market.android.com/search?q=%22usa+travel+guide%22&#...

otherwise I think for google how they weight each word with reviews, quality and other variables its relevant for a new app. Pick a less generic name, if you want it to rank higher in search.

Funnnny2• 15 years ago

The first and the third result seems resonable to me, Free, have over 100.000 install, in category Travel, and related to Travel as well.

Those "TRIPOSO TRAVEL GUIDES" app is a little problem there, but most of them have over 1.000 install, and related to Travel, then the result is acceptable.

The truth is, when I search an app name in the Market, I expect an App that have this function, not the App have this name. Doing this can prevent malware app have a fake name. I don't really know how Google do search at the Market, but I always found what I wanted here.

And remember you're searching for 'usa' 'travel' and 'guide' and it combination, not the whole text.

kumarm• 15 years ago

Couldn't read the article as server seems to have issues. But if author is assuming App Name search to result is App coming up first, thats totally wrong.

Recently I received an email about some one copyrighting a very genenric name for a book and requested me to change the name of my app since they already copyrighted (mind you its copyrighted for book name).

shaggyfrog• 15 years ago

In terms of UX, it's perfectly reasonable to expect a match on an app whose name you type in exactly into the search box. Not at the bottom of the top-20, and not outranked by completely unrelated stuff.

megablast4• 15 years ago

Sorry, you can also read the article here: http://ipadtravelguides.blogspot.com/2011/08/google-not-so-g...

rorrr• 15 years ago

Your server is awful. 503.

orbitingpluto• 15 years ago

I made the same mistake(?) with one my Android apps. Generic terms resulted in less than 100 downloads in the first week after publishing. If the app wasn't free (and ad free) I'm sure it would have stayed there forever. With almost 40 similar applications with the same keywords, it was unreasonable to expect it to show up as the first hit. And even more unreasonable to expect people to pay for it.

Secondly, it would have been much better if I had included a different and more applicable generic term in the name. Last month the app didn't even show up on the first page of results on Google Market or AppBrain. Fortunately, sorting by popularity yielded much better results. (About 25k over 4 months for a can-never-be-popular app, first or second in popularity depending on the week.)

Generic app names have one big advantage: They will eventually get to it and you can rely on organic growth. But you can't expect them to pay for it. (But maybe they will be willing to look at an ad, maybe.)

Worst of all: generic application name and a generic publisher name, in this case: "Travel Guides USA Travel Guide"

I think it's best to choose something simple and small for a first application. Don't cut corners, do it well, and don't expect to make any money on it: you're in it for the experience. Make sure you're giving a unique experience to your users. Beg for feedback! Interacting with your user base is a fairly rewarding experience and it's amazing how helpful people can be. I've even had someone go crazy submitting edited screenshots of my app with good UI suggestions. Even dealing with the super angry at the world 1*-s is an interesting experience. (Don't let it get to you when it happens, cause oh it will happen.)

Side note: One of the most interesting things I have noticed in the Developer Console is the statistics for language and country breakdown. One of my apps had Portuguese first and then Russian as the dominant user language. English eventually became first after 3 months. Koreans hate it. Even my Korean friends hated it!

Another side note: Have any other Android Developers out there gotten emails asking for your source code?

Oops - TL

megablast4• 15 years ago

Great advice, thanks. I am not sure how better and more unique to describe my app (it is a travel guide about the USA), or more company (which writes simple travel guides).

Still, a lot of info to ponder.

zalew• 15 years ago

funny thing is, this http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs... works pretty well.

Google search on Android marketplace is awful

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