Can someone please tell me how the app store rankings work. I have a few apps in the app store but I can't seem to understand the ranking system. I released my latest game hanidoku and it sold 30 the first day and it went to number 54 under puzzles and then fell out by the end of the day. The next 10 or so days, the sales went to 5 a day. I spent some money on advertising, posting to forums like TA, asking more friends to buy it, and much more. After doing this I got 32 sales in one day and got to number 23 under puzzles. I did more posting and anything else I can do so I can move up, and the whole day I stayed at number 23 or so. The next day I sold 139 and I thought I was on my way to moving up. Then I kept checking the rankings every hour or so because it seems that the app store is based on hourly (as far as the rankings). The whole day I never got higher than 23. The next day, I sold 29. I don't understand how that could have been. When I sold 32, I got to number 23, when I sold 139, I didn't move much, then I sold 29 and started moving down. Now I am at 81 and I sold 10 yesterday. How could this be, can anyone tell me? or has had experience that can help me. I read it's good to bunch up your sales and I tried my best to get all my friends to buy around the same time but nothing is working.
I figured this was the case, I did so much research and no one seems to know, I hope if any one ever finds out then they post
You should know that sales are not consistent every day of the week in the App Store. X Number of Sales does not guarantee Y Position on any given day. Also, the new and big hot games of the moment will mess with the store, as everyone is pushed around. I wouldn't advise buying ads right now (although, you already did). They are a waste of money and do virtually nothing to your daily sales. The only people that make money off those ads are the people that sold the ad. How many promo codes do you have, how many have you distributed (and to who?) and how many are accounted for? Don't send codes blindly to a website, you may never see a return nor a response.
7-day weighted average If you search, you'll find a lot of blog and forum posts about how app store rankings work. Everyone has their own theories. One that we've found useful can be found here: http://tii.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=522655# It's someone's analysis, so it may not be completely accurate, but they've used their own sales data to determine that rankings are based on a 7-day weighted average, with the last 3 days contributing the most. Also, even though rankings are averaged over a certain time period, they update on the app store every couple hours (at least that's what it seems like). Keep in mind that if you're looking at rankings for a specific store (e.g., the US store), then you have to analyze your ranking based on the sales for just that store, not all sales.
Once we understand that there is not only one app on the store, the rankings make a lot more sense. One of the reasons you might have been confused by your ranking changes is because of this situation: Your sales spiked, though, your ranking stayed in the same region. Reason? Other app sales spiked as well. just a theory really.
Are you kidding me? That code makes perfect sense! OT: Yes, the App Rankings are all messed up, it has always been that way.
How do you check the ranking of your app? My app isn't in the top 100 because I can't see it in the app store but it might be interesting to see how far off it is.
This website will tell you what your US store ranking is if you're in the top 200 of your category: http://www.topappcharts.com It seems like they update their data at least once per day, but not sure exactly how often.
I also recommend MajicRank for following your rankings. It's a free desktop tool for OSX: http://majicjungle.com/majicrank.html
Hmmm, interesting. I wonder how they are getting the top 200 info? iTunes only reports the top 100 in any category now (other than the first few days of iTunes 9 where they did show the top 200 ). Unlike some other sites that list beyond the top 100 this looks reasonably accurate, as Rogue Touch has been flirting back and forth on the wrong side of 100 for a while in the USA (due to blips where it appears and disappears from the rankings). This site lists Rogue Touch at #105 in RPGs, which I believe to be pretty close to true!
Presumably it looks at which of the top 100 apps in category feature in the general top 100 and works out a weighting per category. For example, as I type, Bailout wars is 100 in all games and 37 in Action games. This implies that right now it's about 100/37 or 2.7 times easier to get into 'Action' than 'All games' Yesterday my game peaked at, I think 78 in Action, 78*2.7 = 210. This web site estimates 213 so I think I may have cracked their algorithm. Of course it could be slightly cleverer, the weightings could be curves rather than linear and based on the different weightings on each category your game is visible in.
I have a new app coming out, what is the best way to get word out about it. I do not want to buy ads, they are a waste. I posted already on the upcoming games sections on TA and a few others. What other ways can anyone suggest?
Once your app is approved, you can also run a contest to give away some of the 50 promo codes you get from Apple to build up some buzz, either in TA's forums or other sites like http://www.appgiveaway.com.
