❕Дополнение к предыдущей новости:

🤓Проверяя индексацию новых локализаций в США, мы заметили, что приложения также индексировались по запросам из локализации Chinese (Traditional). Но почему-то не по всем, например, по запросам из подзаголовка приложения не индексировались.

Сначала мы решили, что возможно локаль Chinese (Traditional) не индексируется, а ранжирование по запросам есть из-за пересечения некоторых иероглифов из Chinese (Simplified).

🔻Решили провести эксперимент и на одном из проектов убрали все иероглифы из Chinese (Simplified) и добавили метаданные на английском в эту локаль, заодно и улучшили позиции в США💪

По результатам эксперимента мы видим, что приложение выпало по всем запросам из Chinese (Simplified) в США:

После этого проверили индексацию по запросам из Chinese (Traditional) в США, и заметили, что по запросам из тайтла приложение по прежнему можно найти, а вот по запросам из поля ключевых слов и подзаголовка — нет. Пример индексации.

👆🏻Вывод: Это похоже на баг алгоритма при добавлении новых локализаций для США. Но если у вас ещё остались запросы, которые вы хотите покрыть, то можете добавить их в тайтл Chinese (Traditional).

Лавры: @vadim_aso

🔥 Продвижение в Украине
Только в этот раз пост не про поисковое продвижение, а про продвижение российских войск :(

Сегодня ночью мои сестра (интервью с которой про продвижение в азиатских и арабских странах вы могли видеть на канале АСО секреты), мама, коллеги, которых вы все прекрасно знаете по различным АСОшным чатикам, проснулись от взрывов. Ракетным и артиллерийским ударам подверглись и Одесса, и Киев, и Харьков.
Произошло это примерно в то же время суток, что и 22 июня 1941 года. Только теперь на Украину напали с противоположной стороны.

Последние несколько недель все мы гадали, под каким предлогом это может произойти. Оказалось, что путину даже не нужен предлог.

Власти РФ рассчитывают, что эта война найдет поддержку у электората и повысит их рейтинг и в ваших силах показать им обратное.
Пожалуйста, выходите на улицы России с протестом против этой войны. Население России может остановить это безумие. Я знаю, что вам страшно, но если вы это не сделаете, то обе наши страны будут повергнуты в хаос с множеством жертв. Блицкрига не будет. Будут десятки и сотни тысяч трупов с обоих сторон.

Все, у кого осталась совесть. Пожалуйста, не молчите! Не бездействуйте! Выходите на улицы в знак протеста!

ASO/ASA Mythbusters

As you know, we don't trust anything except our own eyes (not even Apple!). This is the reason why we conduct our own experiments. For example: whether the Australian locale works in all countries of the world or how special characters are being indexed in stores.

We’ve conducted lots of experiments. To separate them from regular news in the flow of information, we’ve decided to keep them in one place - our ASO Mythbusters blog. Each experiment is different, but they all share the same goal - to prevent mistakes, improve optimization, and increase efficiency. 🤓

To add to the news about our launch, we would like to introduce one of our latest experiments that explores the way algorithms identify emojis. ☺️

If we replace a word with an emoji in the keyword field, will it be indexed in the App Store? And will the app rank higher in the search results? We conducted an experiment with one app and five different localizations - Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), and Hungarian.
The name of each country was supplemented by a corresponding flag emoji.

Objective: Minimizing the character count

Spoiler alert: There will be no spoiler :) Read our blog; there's a lot of interesting stuff there!

By the way, if you conduct similar experiments and you’d like to be featured on ASO Mythbusters - contact us! We’ll be happy to publish the most enthralling ones.

The 3 Day Delay of Search Ads Popularity #AppStore 👀

Did you know that Apple delays the keywords’ SAP for 3 days? 🤨
Therefore, to understand the actual SAP of any search term on a particular day, you need to wait 3 days. It turns out that the SAP you're seeing today is 3 days old.
❗️Sometimes SAP data is delayed for up to 2-4 days due to time zone differences.

Examples:
1️⃣ Apple Event 2022.
It was announced at 24.08 but held at 7.09.
Look how SAP of the “apple event” search term has changed in the USA: view.

2️⃣ Diya App.
The “Diya” app's popularity skyrocketed on 31.08.
We can only witness the SAP growth after 3 days: view.

How does this affect us?
🅰️We immediately see new suggestions when users search for something at the same time or some kind of app event is launched. However, we will only see their SAP in 3 days. Consequently, we can miss the potential opportunity to get trafficking through new search terms.

🅱️You can draw the wrong conclusions from the analysis.

❗️SAP for search terms "как сломать руку" and "как уехать из россии" in Russia (Terrorist State) is supposed to grow in AppStore on 24.09.

Thus, when analyzing any application, you need to refer to the SAP value from 3 days ago, otherwise, you will have outdated data.

We will continue to review SAP issues soon. Stay tuned. 😊

❗️Sharp growth and the gradual decline of Search Ads Popularity in #AppStore

Do you believe that SAP in App Store is always veracious? Not to burst your bubble, but this is often not the case.🤔

For instance, whenever a major global event is occurring or the title of a new app ends up in search suggestions in the App Store, SAP of the related search terms can grow rapidly in just one day. Then the event ends or the app title disappears from suggestions and the SAP numbers gradually decrease throughout the next month instead of changing drastically.

Examples:

1️⃣ With the news of Queen Elizabeth's death, SAP of the corresponding search terms has grown rapidly in the USA. This unfortunate event was actively discussed for about a week, but we see that the SAP returned to previous values almost until the end of October. View.

2️⃣27.08 the app name “MagicApp Calling & Messaging” was shown in search suggestions in the US in relation to the “magica” keyword (SAP 20).
30.08 SAP of “MagicApp Calling & Messaging” search term became 15-17 (don’t forget about the 3-day delay of SAP👆).
14.09 the search term disappeared from the suggested terms, but popularity hasn’t decreased rapidly. SAP has been declining for almost a month.

🧐Takeaway
Always pay attention to SAP change history when you select a search term to work with. If you see the typical situation where a search term increases over the course of 24 hours and then slowly decreases during the next month, there is a 90% chance that the search term was popular for one day or a few days at best.
☝️Therefore, it won’t bring you much traffic.

We will continue to review SAP issues soon. Stay tuned.

🤓Kudos: @olya_polaris

🔥 Apple changing the logic of the boost at the first release in the App Store
#appstore

🔙 Previously, when an app was first released, Apple used to add an auto-suggestion for the first word of the Title in each individual location.

🆕 Now the auto-suggestion for your Title will appear for each keyword in your Title for 5 days.

Case 1️⃣:
App: https://apps.apple.com/US/app/id1664474801
First release: 2023/01/19
A boost for the Title "shopper: grocery shopping list" appeared for a bunch of search terms for 5 days, which means that the boost didn't work on the first word from the title. ❗️

Case 2️⃣:
App: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1636284090.
First release: 2023/01/20
The boost for the Title "word duo - crossword & puzzle" from English (UK) appeared in the UK and other countries (as UK localization works in almost all countries) and lasted for 5 days.

🧏‍♂️ Conclusion:
Apple has changed the boost algorithm. Now the boost appears for any keywords of your Title. Now you don't have to delete/replace the brand at the end of Title to give space to the priority keyword. 🙂

Kudos: @max_foux

How often does SAP update?🤓

❗️Seems like Apple doesn't re-evaluate Search Ads Popularity as often as it used to.

We often encounter periods when SAP remains unchanged. As we counted that in 2022 there were entirely 42 freezes. The longest one in 2023 lasted more than 2 weeks — from Feb 15 till March 5.

☝️ It is important to pay attention to this when analyzing the results.

Kudos: @Raven_RadASO

⚠️ Beware of Scams! ⚠️

We've identified several scam websites falsely claiming to be associated with RadASO, using our logo and branding. We have identified them, and they will be held accountable.

❗️Please note: RadASO does not sell accounts or offer incentive traffic.

If you come across any suspicious accounts and can help us identify the culprits, please report them to us for a reward.

Wondering about the number of organic installs your app receives from iPad devices in the US? 🤔

It's impossible. Unfortunately, App Store Connect only allows two filters at a time (Device, Country, Source).

❓Any ideas on this or are device analytics not your top priority?

We continue the topic of SAP unreliability.

Previously, we talked about the 3 day delay of SAP and its sharp growth and the gradual decline.

Now let's figure out how to identify incentive traffic.🤔

1️⃣For example, we noticed a rapid growth of app impressions in our analytics, but it had no effect on installs🤷‍♂️
This is the first key indicator to pay attention to and we speculate that some competitor has bought incentive traffic.

2️⃣We checked how SAP changed during this period and noticed that SAP by one of the search terms “traductor” increased the next few days after the impressions growth (keep in mind the SAP delay).

3️⃣Then we checked if any of the competitors hit the top of the search result on that day by that keyword. Obviously, we instantly found that one of the apps appeared at the 2nd in Mexico by keyword “traductor”.


📍Takeaways
Incentivized traffic can affect Search Ads Popularity and make it artificial. Before relying on SAP for your ASO performance, make sure it's not incentivized traffic.

In the next post, we will examine specific examples of these cases.
Stay tuned😉

Kudos: @Raven_RadASO

Is English (U.K.) indexed in Japan? 🤔
#appstore

📢Recently, there was news that the English (U.K.) localization is indexed in Japan instead of English (U.S.) according to Apple's documentation.
We decided to check it out because we never trust documentation.

The result:
1️⃣ English (U.S.) continues to be indexed in Japan.
2️⃣ English (U.K.) is indexed in Japan if English (U.S.) or Japanese is not filled in. Example

💡 English (U.K.) is also indexed in the U.S. and Canada if one of the localizations indexed in these countries is not filled in.

☝️ Take these features into account when conducting textual ASO and analyzing the results.

Kudos: @vhubaryk

📉 Google UAC cannibalizes Search

We have noticed a significant decrease in conversion on Google Play from the Search source for our branded search terms over the past few months, as well as an increase in downloads from the Ads and referrals source.

This happened because Google Play started showing ads for branded search terms, previously only the brand's app was displayed at the top without ads: compare.

🔻Consequences:

1️⃣ Since the ads now take the "zero" position, as a result, organic traffic is being cannibalized, which is confirmed by the growth of traffic for branded search terms from the Ads and referrals source.

2️⃣ Your competitors are now advertising using your brand name what can eat up traffic.

🤷‍♂️ The main problem is that in Google UAC, you cannot select search terms for advertising + you cannot specify negative keywords.

📍Cannibalization and interception of branded traffic by competitors is now a new reality for your app on Google Play, and there is no solution for it yet.

❓Have you noticed a decrease in conversion from Search in your apps since the beginning of July 2023?

Kudos: @vhubaryk

📊 The impact of incentive traffic on SAP

Previously, we demonstrated how events and news can influence Search Ads Popularity (SAP), and we also explored how to identify competitors' incentivized traffic.

Let's take a look at some examples of the influence of incentivized traffic on SAP 👆

1️⃣ On June 13, the SAP of the request "voice translator free" in Australia increased sharply — from 5 to 33. The popularity indicators were high for almost a month with a fairly high frequency of updates.

2️⃣ In Canada, we noticed an equally significant example with the query "language learning free". It seems that incentivized traffic was purchased twice.

To sum up all our posts about SAP: we recommend scrutinizing this value more closely and taking into account all the factors that can influence it.

Kudos: @Raven_RadASO

🚀 Monthly Recap: Don't Miss Out!

We are testing a new post format. Feel free to share your feedback in the comments. What specific information would you prefer to see more of?

1️⃣ Boosting App Rankings: App Rating Prompts
Learn how RadASO's App Rating Prompts revolutionize rankings, steering clear of Black ASO. Goodbye to outdated methods!

2️⃣ App Strategies: Seasonal Optimization
Debating app optimization for holidays? Discover RadASO's strategies for seasonal sales and updates – applicable not only during New Year's festivities but also for other holidays throughout the year!

3️⃣ Holiday ASO-Creatives: Inspirations
Explore festive ASO-creatives on Google Play & App Store. Get inspired with New Year's-themed ideas for app attention.

4️⃣ The updated Today tab in the ASA
RadASO noticed the revised layout of the ASA's Today tab, where screenshots now appear in a subtle 'floating' arrangement in the background.

5️⃣ Algorithm Alert
We've noticed changes in the AppStore algorithm, with English (US) locales being indexed globally. More about this on Twitter.

Stay updated with our monthly picks for app success! 📱

🎉 Wishing you a joyous New Year filled with prosperity and app brilliance!

❓Apple Blocks Indexation for Using Certain Brand Names in Metadata❓

The Background

On August 4th, the RadASO team made the first release for the new client. The app gained better positions only to lose them the next day. After that, there was no indexation by the added search terms.

On August 24th, the latest release included the addition of some new search terms. However, this had no effect.

How Did We Act?

For the next release on September 21st, we’ve removed some of the competitors' brand search terms from the metadata.

Specifically, the ones with search results showing less than 20 apps. There were 4 such keywords in the metadata.

📝 Our hypothesis was as follows: Apple probably clears out and blocks from indexing all the apps that use these brand names in their metadata. Despite the popularity of some brands in the target country, there are only a few search results on them.

What Was the Outcome?

Once those brand names were removed from the metadata (on September 22nd), the indexing was renewed, and there was again a notable growth in positions for the search term.

🟢 In this way, the hypothesis was verified: removing some brand search terms with a small number of apps in search results helped to get indexation by other terms used in the metadata in the Apple Store search.

Kudos: @olya_polaris

What's the Cost per Install (Apple calls it CPA) in Apple Search Ads❓

Quite a popular question in chats.
For some reason, when we say, "anywhere from nothing to everything," it doesn't satisfy a questioner, even though it's accurate 😊

We decided to dive into our recent stats and whip up a chart. Classic programmer answer – super precise yet totally useless 😊

The cheapest install costs $0.01, while the most expensive one: $166.
Dropping in a country or category might narrow the range only slightly.

What can we glean from this masterpiece of a chart?

IMHO, nothing 🙂, but feel free to kick around some thoughts in the comments.

🚨 🆘 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐀𝐝𝐬 𝐏𝐨𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 (𝐒𝐀𝐏)

Today, all ASO experts have noticed a sharp drop in SAP. Let us explain what happened:

◀️ 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄: Every ASO tool (including us) received SAP through the Apple Search Ads Account (ASA). It allowed us to get it for any keyword.

▶️ 𝐍𝐎𝐖: 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐀𝐏, 𝐢𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐩𝐩-𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐒𝐀𝐏! That is, all keywords it considers irrelevant to the app = SAP 5.

Examples from the ASA:

🔸 PDF Scanner - all irrelevant terms from SAP 5

🔸 Plant Scanner

🔸 Online clothing store

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧

This may be temporary, but it's not worth focusing on SAP for now, and if it stays, you need to find another way to assess popularity.

💊 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐒𝐀𝐏 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬

We and colleagues have found a salvation for all ASO Tools.🙂😌

👉 At the moment, we can get the current SAP from the Apple Search Ads account from the "Search for related keywords" field when manually searching for keywords.
___
Have a question? Discussion in ASO Busters > https://discord.com/invite/kr78W9aSDD in the App Store thread

🆕 Search Ads Popularity (SAP) drops again 📉

Apple has once again made changes to the SAP of certain keywords:

💠 Keywords in all languages that have special characters in different countries (delivery.com, tracker’, 7-11)

💠 Keywords in Asian languages with spaces (顺 丰 快 递, ゆ う パック)

💠 Keywords in Asian (and other) languages that contain a combination with English keywords (ems-中国邮政速递物流, ゆうパケットポストmini)

There are also problems with SAP in some keywords 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 (lazada, h&m, disney+)

It looks like Apple is finally trying to fix a bug with SAP that has existed for years, now it will only show SAP to keywords that are 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 searched for.

❌ Negative Consequences

⬅️Previously, Apple assigned the same popularity to one keyword in different modifications.

➡️ Now, if ASO specialists consider such keywords unpopular and remove them from metadata, they may lose positions for the keywords in another modification with high SAP.

✅ Positive Consequences

If the algorithm is finally fixed, ASO specialists will be able to clean the semantic core of "junk phrases" that are not truly popular.

Will these changes last? Subscribe to us and let's see. 👀

Let's discuss it on ASO Busters in Discord 👉

Kudos: @iryna_kuznietsova

✅ Win-back offers for auto-renewable subscriptions now available in App Store

They allow us to reach previous subscribers and encourage them to resubscribe to our app or game 💪

Apple displays these offers to eligible customers in various places across the App Store, including:
- on your product page❗️
- in personalized recommendations
- on editorial selections on the Today, Games, and Apps tabs

You can find them in the Subscriptions section of App Store Console, particularly in the Subscription Prices here. Also, you can read more about them here.

So, for us as ASO-specialists, this is an additional free channel that can bring extra revenue with relevant users.☝️

Kudos: @ira_biz

🔥 Why SAP scores dropped after Oct 1st 🍏

On October 1, 2025, Apple stopped showing Search Ads Popularity (SAP) for keywords with scores below ~50.
The first to notice this was Igor Kravchenko (@gorniv).
It looked like Apple killed low-frequency keyword data… but here’s what really happened 👇

💎 Apple introduced a new “Monthly Search Term Rank Report” inside Apple Ads cabinet > Insights. 👉 And here’s the kicker: Apple has never shared this data openly before

💎It shows Search Popularity by country and month, with up to 15 months of historical data.

💎 Two metrics are now interesting for us:
- Search Popularity (1–100) → the values all ASO/Apple Ads tools use 👀
- Search Popularity (1–5) → what was hidden behind "blue dots"

⚠️ Current limitations
🔸 Search terms with SAP<37 aren’t shown (didn't find a smaller value)

🔸 Only 7,500 rows displayed

🔸 Still in beta - some features (like charts) don’t work properly.

Takeaway
So, the SAP drop you see in ASO tools = Apple syncing it with this new report, where we cannot see low-frequency data by search terms.
Now we have to wait and hope that Apple will fix this.

📘 Official Apple manual: “Search Term Rank Report”
___
Kudos: @max_foux