APP ranking investigation: How to break out of the unspoken rules

 Not long ago, the WeChat public account inflated traffic incident burst the industry bubble. In the Internet industry where false enthusiasm is prevalent, brushing reading is just the tip of the iceberg. "Brushing" has long become a common means of publicity and promotion. APP ranking manipulation is one of them. Before the App Store’s bidding ranking model entered China, using various methods to manipulate the rankings was an important way for apps to gain exposure. "Most companies have done some manipulation of the rankings, especially when they encounter some activities or specific days that require intensive promotion, they will do some manipulation and the ranking will go up after a while."

A company's marketing staff told the editor: "It's the end of the year, and we still have to conduct KPI assessments." On the one hand, app developers can get more users by brushing the rankings , and on the other hand, they can show good-looking numbers to investors , and investors can show even better-looking numbers to the next round of investors. The interest community composed of multiple parties has formed an organized and clearly divided APP ranking industry chain.

Everyone is a chart-cheater

In this industrial chain, everyone may participate in it consciously or unconsciously. If any promotion method that does not guide users to download based on their real needs is called "brushing", then many users will complete the process of brushing the charts again and again while obtaining game equipment, pocket money and trial experience.

On many ranking-boosting platforms, users can get a reward of less than 2 yuan for downloading an APP in a specified manner. The reward for completing registration and taking a screenshot in a group buying app is 7 yuan, and the rewards for some financial management apps are as high as dozens of yuan.

This type of APP is called a " points wall ", which is actually a form of mobile advertising provided by a third-party mobile advertising platform to application developers in addition to advertising banners and interstitial ads. In addition to the above-mentioned "money making" apps, they are also often seen on mobile game pages. For example, when passing a level, a window pops up to tell the user that points are needed to play the next level, and points can be obtained by downloading a designated APP.

The industry calls this incentive-based promotion method "meat brushing", which means that the users are real and the user behaviors are real. Its characteristics are low risk, good effect and high price.

"Our price for acquiring a user is RMB 3.50, and the most we can offer is RMB 3, which is considered cheap. We also have prices as expensive as RMB 4." When the editor consulted an advertising platform about the promotion price, the other party was enthusiastic and assured that their users were real, not fake users created by machines.

An APP promoter told the editor that the industry price is 2.5-4 yuan per user. After deducting the reward given by the advertising company to the user from this price, the remaining 1-2 yuan goes into the pocket of the advertising company. However, these advertising companies also have the problem of using fake users to impersonate real users to defraud advertisers, so the real users "swiped" by the points wall are also watered down.

Users can earn some pocket money in the offer wall application. "The most I can earn a day is 50, and that's when I take in an apprentice." The above-mentioned promoter told the editor that taking in an apprentice means developing new users, and the promoter can get a reward that is the same as the reward earned by each new user. "This is the main method for these platforms to add new users." The above-mentioned advertising company said that its total users are more than 7 million, and the number of users of the first-tier platforms is twice that.

While acquiring new users, the points wall also achieves keyword optimization effects by specifying search terms. For example, in a certain "money-making application", Ctrip 's keyword is "hotel Ctrip travel", Tuniu's keyword is "12306", and Anjuke's keyword is "second-hand housing".

Although the points wall is also a form of ranking manipulation, from the perspective of app developers, the points wall is a bidding method they use to gain exposure in the App Store. It brings real users, and its weight is not low. It is not "obviously fake". Developers will also seek other exposure opportunities, so the market space for points wall is still considerable.

As Apple's search ads are about to be launched in China, the points wall market may be impacted. According to analysis by industry insiders, there will be another capital competition in Apple's advertising bidding system. Capital giants will firmly occupy the rankings of core keywords, and small and micro enterprises may only get a small share of Apple's advertising rankings.

Clearly marked price "machine brush"

If "human brushing" can barely be considered advertising, then directly brushing the rankings with a mobile phone (called "machine brushing") is completely data falsification. Practitioners of machine-brushing continue to crack the APP Store ranking algorithm and operate Apple accounts to complete downloads, thereby improving rankings.

A senior industry insider told the editor that there are roughly two types of machine flashing: one is virtual machine flashing, which is to crack the APP Store's protocol algorithm and simulate the search, click and even download behaviors of a large number of Apple users in a short period of time through servers in multiple locations. It should be noted that this flashing operation does not require a real device and will not generate any real APP download records.

The second method is to set up a flashing studio with a large number of Apple mobile phones stored in it. Through one-click modification software and automated running scripts, these mobile phones can continuously simulate real user operations and perform real APP downloads and installations. Each time an operation is completed, the Apple phone parameters will be changed to turn it into another Apple phone.

There are not many of these machine-brushing studios in the market, and even if app developers want to find them, they need to go through advertising agencies. Some promoters told the editor that there are no more than 5 machine-brushing studios in the country, while others said there are more than a dozen. The above-mentioned advertising company said that they have cooperated with dozens of machine-brushing studios across the country.

Although there are different opinions on the number of machine-brushing studios, several practitioners have pointed out one thing to the editor: machine-brushing practitioners have strong skills and their income is not low.

From a price list of machine-brushed items obtained by the editor, it can be seen that the prices of the best-selling list, paid list, and free list are different. It costs 34,000 to reach the top 10 on the paid list, and 34,000 to reach the top 50 on the free list.

(Free list price)

The above-mentioned advertising company stated that it is easier and cheaper to manipulate the paid rankings. Since users download more apps at night, the paid rankings are concentrated at 18:00 and 21:00. The customers of the paid list and best-selling list are mainly mobile game companies.

(Paid list price)

(Bestseller Price)

In addition to brushing the rankings, machine brushing also provides keyword ranking services. The above-mentioned advertising company stated that this service rarely has a clear price tag, and the quotes are given by the brushing studio based on the keywords, their quantity and the effect of the brushing. If the company itself is well-known and wants to maintain a top 10 position in 5 keywords for a week, the package price may fluctuate between tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.

The editor learned that although machine brushing is cheaper than human brushing and the effect is faster, it is more risky. Once discovered by Apple, there is a risk of being removed from the shelves, and all the users brought by this are fake, so large companies often use the "human brushing" method, and they will only adopt this method when they want to quickly expose a certain APP.

Usually advertising companies will recommend increasing the volume of a "fake APP" first, and then using various promotional methods to drive the volume of the "main APP". "Vest APP" refers to another APP under the company that is not the main operating APP. In this way, even if the vest APP is removed from the shelves, it will not affect the company's main APP.

The flashing teams mentioned above are all targeting the APP Store. In the Android market , this situation is much less common. But this does not mean that the APP rankings in the Android market are more accurate. It is just because the Android market is too fragmented. In addition to third-party app stores , major mobile phone manufacturers also have their own app markets , and the rules are different, so it is difficult to operate in a unified manner.

A person familiar with the promotion of Android market applications told the editor, "There are also many unspoken rules in the Android market's application rankings, and different application stores have different handling methods."

However, no matter which method is used to manipulate the rankings, it can only gain temporary exposure, and user retention rate cannot be guaranteed. Although advertising company staff claim that using the points wall to increase user retention can guide user retention, with a retention rate of 20%, this data is also questionable. After all, those who teach people how to use the points wall online will always say this: Just delete it after use! The false data brought by machine brushing, apart from pushing up the APP ranking in the game with Apple's anti-cheating algorithm, is not even displayed in the advertiser's background. Its only purpose is to get on the list.

Gambling with Apple

Apple has a clear attitude towards these chart-manipulating behaviors.

On the official website of Apple developers, the act of manipulating the rankings is prohibited. In the "APP Review Guidelines" provided by Apple to developers, the editor found two regulations pointing to the behavior of manipulating rankings.

"If a developer attempts to game the system by cheating the review process, stealing user data, copying other developers' work, or artificially manipulating rankings, your app will be removed from the Apple Store and you will be removed from the Developer Program."

In addition, Apple has a rule that also implies that ranking manipulation is not desirable: "If we find that the content in the app or the developer's behavior is 'across the line,' we will remove the app." Apple did not specify what kind of behavior "across the line" refers to. However, it can be seen that Apple has the highest control over the apps in the App Store, and there is a high risk of manipulating the rankings.

According to sources, in order to combat the practice of manipulation of the points wall, Apple will, in addition to regular supervision, also adjust the APP Store algorithm, such as reducing the download weight of the APP Store's free list, increasing the weight of factors such as uninstall rate and user retention, and removing apps suspected of manipulation of the list. Others said that Apple would track users who downloaded multiple apps consecutively, and the download volume of "abnormal users" would not be counted as new users.

Under Apple’s “high-pressure” control, many developers have received warning emails from Apple, stating that if they do not make rectifications within a deadline, their apps will be removed from the shelves. Apps under Himalaya , Lizhi FM, Koala FM and Renren Games have all been taken off the shelves due to suspected chart manipulation issues. However, due to Apple’s unclear wording, it is impossible to know how many of the apps that were removed were due to ranking manipulation. Apple declined to comment.

Even so, the wildly growing APPs still need to seize more market share within the limited market. In the Chinese Internet where plagiarism and imitation are prevalent, it is much easier to make a mediocre product with a louder voice than to make a truly creative and technologically advanced product. It can bring more attention and capital in the short term, and it can also avoid the risk of painstakingly developing a product only to be imitated by a large company and eliminated.

These companies invested rounds of financing into promotion, and advertising companies and flashing teams emerged to profit from the profits. However, taking machine brushing as an example, the threshold for machine brushing is actually very high. There are not many machine brushing studios in the country, and the huge order volume is in the hands of a few people.

According to the editor, the cost of flashing is mainly divided into two parts. In terms of hardware, the generation and procurement costs of Apple ID account for a large proportion. According to the current market conditions, a flashing team's demand for Apple ID is at least over one million per month. For the real machine flashing team, they also need to bear the costs of purchasing, maintaining and upgrading Apple phones.

A person close to the flashing team told the editor: "The mobile phones used in the flashing studio have been upgraded to iPhone 5 and above. iPhone 4 and 4S products have been eliminated."

For the machine-flashing team, the hardware cost is still controllable, and the cost of software technology is their core barrier. In addition to solving problems such as network IP and Apple ID generation and management, what is more important is the ability to crack and research the iOS system and the ability to analyze the APPStore algorithm, all of which require extremely strong technical reserves.

“Those without technical capabilities can only act as agents of these studios or purchase their technical products,” said the industry insider.

However, no team can truly master the algorithm rules of the APPStore, so everyone is analyzing based on the existing rules, and mistakes have occurred. According to the industry insider, the APPStore made a major rule adjustment in September this year, causing all virtual machine brushing teams to stop working for a month.

In the gap between Apple adjusting its algorithm and implementing supervision, the ranking bots are constantly changing their methods to seek the most cost-effective solution. "In the past two months, more and more people have asked us to do machine flashing, and Apple's management is not strict enough," said an advertising company employee.

No winners

The marketing personnel who say that most companies have cheated on the rankings and the investors who remain silent on the issue are all operating within the unspoken rules of this industry. They either complete the promotion KPI assigned by their superiors, or look for investment with beautiful data, or show the data of the invested companies to the next round of investors. In this gray area of ​​the industrial chain, every party benefits from it.

Those who suffered obvious losses in profitability were users who downloaded a bunch of crude apps based on the rankings, although some users even made money by downloading on the points wall platform. Small and medium-sized enterprises that do not have sufficient funds to continue to rank high will soon be stopped in the Internet winter.

In the long run, the rising customer acquisition prices will put companies into an exhausting publicity and subsidy war and affect the entire industry, and ultimately there will be no winner.

When botching the rankings can bring more attention, users and high valuations, and not botching the rankings will easily lead to failure in the fierce competition, and the pursuit of interests is proven to be so legitimate and correct, who still cares about the so-called fairness and proper market order? As more and more companies spend resources on publicity and promotion, there will be fewer and fewer companies making products. False and exaggerated figures have also led the development of the Internet in this direction, and practitioners are shrouded in a dirty air.

In May last year, the Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Bureau investigated and punished a company that manipulated the rankings. Not long ago, a Beijing data company took two companies in Hangzhou that openly promoted APP manipulation business to court. It can be seen from this that although APP ranking manipulation seems to be a quick success, it cannot stand the test. APP promotion is not just a simple task. It requires professional APP promotion. You can contact Qinggua Media to help you customize top APP promotion services.

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media information flow

The author of this article @Phoenix Technology Compiled and published by (APP Top Promotion), please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!