My guess is that Compression will not chart. It's too new to gain much from the algorithm, assuming it's working the way I think it is.
2AM in what time zone? Perhaps there's another component (in addition to lifetime free and paid sales) that is counting sales for the current day differently? Creating a sort of Sawtooth effect as you hit midnight and then slowly increasing your rank during the day, only to drop at midnight again. Just some thoughts that could help explain what you see. Others have noticed it as well.
Very interesting. So whatever magic position Apple put one of these apps in, is where they may have to start at each day. If true, that's really crazy. A dev would never advance, and never lose either.
Pacific Time Also I got my report back for the 3rd on Doodle Army. Which has dropped now from 25th on Feb 2nd to 41st in the 3 days of the new rank system. Inwhich the downloads were cut almost in half. I figured since It was still very visible at 36th on the 3rd that I wouldn't see much change in downloads. Guess I was wrong. But just like GTA all my negative movement happened during the hours when normal humans should be asleep.
So 2AM Pacific time. Not that it rules anything out yet... perhaps that is the first point they update the rankings for the new day. Like I said, others have noticed this, in particular some of the people that have gained ground. It does sound like something in the calculation could be reset daily, causing this "sawtooth" effect as new sales trickle in during the day.
Free to Paid test results in - free counts in paid ranking confirmed OK, yesterday we switched one of our apps, That Ain't It! MJ Trivia from free to paid to see what the effect would be. We put a nice disclaimer at the top of the description to let people know that the app would be free again in a few days, so I don't expect any downloads. It did have 400-500 downloads per day ranked in the 25-50 range of trivia games. The app has had 45,000 downloads since Oct '09. It is now #83 in the top 100 paid music apps on the US app store based on it's ZERO paid app sales. I updated my blog with more details and my latest thoughts on the matter that I won't bore you with in the forum, but you can read about here. So, not the 1 million free download test we are looking for, but a simple confirmation that free app downloads matter (for the moment).
I understand now. But it was off the charts completely before the other day, correct? We're suggesting that the free downloads catapulted it to top 100 in the new system.
You sir, are fantastic! That is a very interesting experiment, and it's good to hear that we have really nailed the outline of the new algorithm, if not the exact equation yet. Of course the bad news is this is ripe for exploitation now. It's only going to make things worse if Apple leaves this calculation as-is.
My current guess is this change is unintentional and due to a problem with the real-time sales data. My second guess is that this is an experiment, similar to when Apple experimented with top-200 lists. My third guess is that this a new algorithm that will drive already unsustainably low average app prices down further. Very disturbing indeed!
To provide a counterpoint to the free-sales-matter theory: Hippo High Dive has been free for 12 days. In those 12 days, it got about 78,000 free downloads. It went as high as top 20 in Family, top 50 in Action in the US - and actually went to top 5 of all free apps in Italy. I switched it back to paid on Wednesday when all the craziness started going down, to see what happens. And what happened is that it disappeared off all charts in all countries. Still not ranked anywhere, 2 days later. And it actually got 21 paid downloads on Wednesday. So.... theories?
I've seen the same patterns with my apps and competitors. The reason this happens every night @ 2-3AM is because that's when it breaks. Did anyone notice last night around midnight PST the rankings fixed themselves, and all the classic apps went back to their rightful position? Then, like clockwork, they broke again @ ~230AM PST. Then guess what? No sales report either. Apple is obviously having problems with their app store calculations, there is no "new ranking algorithm". Refer to post #2.
Apple hates hippos? I think it's the age of the app, which is why I think Compression will probably not get a paid rank either.
Even better, perhaps Hippos broke the app store! They do weigh a lot Seriously though, it is strange that Hippo High Dive is caught up in limbo... Purchasable, but unlisted in ranks. Probably just a VERY unlucky time to change from free to paid.
Nope, I most definitely did not see that, and I did check rank after midnight PST. Will be watching it tonight even closer, to see if I see anything.
Hmmm. My theory is that while your Hippo has lots of free-sales-matter at 78K, the Kids and Family sub-categories are more competitive than Games-Music and so you would have needed to keep Hippo free for a longer period of time to make a difference in your paid app ranking. That Ain't It! MJ Trivia has been around top 25-50 in free for 4 months. Our other That Ain't It! Lite app was also free for a similar amount of time, but not as popular, and it didn't make it onto the paid top 100 after switching to paid. So, I would still predict that any app that has been in the top 25 free of its category for 3+ months would make it onto the top 100 paid with a switch to paid.
