Google Play rankings?

[PixelKicks]

Hi everyone,

I've spent the last hour or two googling information on Google Play app rankings, and a few websites mention that standard pagerank of the app page is taken into account when calculating rankings.

This seems to make sense, though I'd estimate it's probably not a large factor, with daily downloads being a much higher factor IMO.

So my question is, how much of a factor does standard link-building for a Google Play app webpage have in the rankings?.

We're trying to increase exposure of an app we've built (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.onedirection), and though we seem to have more downloads, reviews and +1's than others, we seem to be ranking beneath them.

Thanks,

Chris.

[Bala_K]

Thanks for raising this question Chris!  I would also wanted to know this, as the competition of the apps in Play is much high.

I guess, number of referrals/traffic to a particular app page may also count. but not sure. Lets wait for any positive proven record/answer.

[TomRayner]

Hi Chris

Before I begin: this is undoubtedly a moral dilemma for me - whether or not to help someone who is intending to bring more One Direction into the world.

With that said (partly in jest!) one factor that I think is missing from your list is retention - how many downloads vs how many installs.  The better this ratio is, the better the play store algorithm will deem the app and thus it will promote it in the rankings.  There's not much you can do to control this, however, other than making a quality app of course.

Freshness is also a factor - newer apps will get some preference and I imagine in a 1D category, newer apps might pop up virtually every day.  So this could be impacting you.

Other than that, your standard SEO ranking factors I imagine would have some effect. On-page optimisation and inbound links passing PageRank will more than likely boost the ranking - but how much I'm afraid I can't say.

Everything else, ratings/downloads/reviews etc - you have covered.  All I would suggest is maybe to look at some analytics tools. App Annie comes with a number of tools that provide you with the metrics for the top ranking apps by category.  What I'd suggest is to look at the metrics, look for any patterns, and then throw in traditional SEO reports such as the on-page optimisation tool in Moz Pro/Analytics and any inbound links via OpenSiteExplorer.

Hope this helps. I hope you find that "One Thing" to help you rank higher.