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akidokraja

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 19, 2013
404
462
Hi, everybody

I was just wondering if any one had a similar experience with the huge drop in rankings and keyword search.
My app (a simple unit converter) was listed first time around a week a go. I listed it as free for the first 4 days. As soon as app was approved on Friday it had 172 downloads, Saturday saw a huge jump to 1200, Sunday it was 2400, and then Monday and Tuesday had around 1700. It ranked anywhere between 130 - 200 in utilities category. Keyword search for "Converter, units, or currency" listed my app in the first 20 always. People started emailing me and leaving excellent reviews and words of encouragement so naturally i felt really good. On wednesday this week I changed the price to $0.99. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday i had on average 35 downloads a day (which I think was fantastic!!!). Rankings started good (less then 200 in utilities category) and in keyword search I was within first 20-30. Then it comes Saturday (today) and i am completely removed from first 300 and in keyword search I am somewhere around 100-150??

This is my first app so I don't have any experience how this works. I understand that besides keywords Apple looks at the download speed/rate but it just baffles me that I would fall so behind in a matter of couple of hours. By the way, I never did any kind of promotion except told a couple of friends ( word of mouth).

If anyone had any similar experience or has any advice to give I would appreciate it very much. Thanks.
 

firewood

macrumors G3
Jul 29, 2003
8,107
1,343
Silicon Valley
I've seen similar (or larger) jumps in rankings and download rates when switching an app between free and paid.

Search rankings for free apps versus paid apps appear to be calculated independently from separate data sets, and high rankings in one don't cross over to the other. The probably switched your search rank from the free to the paid calculation (and possibly also from new to old) a few days after you switched your app. You could try switching back to test this.

The introduction of iOS 6 Chomp and the stale or missing new apps section reportedly caused a sudden significant drop in sales for many developers.
 

TouchMint.com

macrumors 68000
May 25, 2012
1,625
318
Phoenix
New apps get a rankings boost for a set amount of days. It seems that going from free > paid also will give you that new rankings boost too.
 
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