How long should an App Store app name be? 23 characters or less is best!

Recently, Apple officially sent an email to developers stating that from September 8th, the names of applications listed on the App Store must not exceed 50 characters. In this regard, data agency App Annie found that apps that keep their name length to 23 characters or less have better exposure opportunities on the App Store.

It is understood that there are more than 2 million applications on the App Store, so search has become the best way for users to discover applications. However, in the current App Store , there are a large number of applications that have not been updated or have names that are too long. Apple officially stated that in order to improve the search ranking of apps and increase downloads, many developers choose to add many function descriptions or keywords unrelated to the app content in the app name. This behavior greatly damages the user experience.

To this end, Apple decided to clean up those zombie software that have not been updated for a long time after the release of the new generation of Apple mobile phones, and shorten the character limit of application names from the original 255 characters to 50 characters. In addition to improving users' search experience on the App Store, Apple's move to shorten app name characters is also believed to be paving the way for the paid search feature that will soon be launched on the App Store.

In addition, regarding the new policy on character limits for App Store app names, App Annie counted the names of the top 200 apps on the App Store download and best-selling lists in the United States before the new regulations were issued and found that apps with names limited to 23 characters accounted for 50% and 51% of the two lists, respectively. Apps with names longer than 50 characters only account for 15% and 19% of the download and best-selling lists. Therefore, for most apps, limiting the app name length to 23 characters or less can result in better search ranking results and thus more downloads.

App Annie also used the social application Match™ as an example. Before the App Store issued the new regulations, the name of the application was "Match™ - Dating App to Flirt, Chat and Meet Local Single Men and Women" with 70 English characters, including functional description keywords such as "Local" and "Single". However, after the new policy was promulgated, these redundant keyword descriptions actually lowered the app's search ranking in the App Store.

Therefore, on September 13th, US time, the developer of Match™ made a new adjustment to the name of the app, changing it to “Match™ – #1 Dating App”. The new app name not only meets Apple's 50-character limit, but also describes the app's functions more concisely, allowing it to receive maximum exposure on the App Store.