A ranking-boosting app topped the App Store charts?

The reporter found a magical (qi) (pa) application in the App Store.

According to data from an ASO website, this app named "Music Hypnosis Master" was launched at the end of August 2015. In the two weeks before and after its launch, its ranking on the CN-Free Music Chart of the App Store fluctuated between 180-300. Then on September 25, the ranking disappeared. It reappeared on the 26th, jumping to 21st place and remained steadily between 20-30th place for 5 months. Its competitors on the list include Koala FM, Migu Music and the like.

Open the Music Hypnosis Master, its function is quite simple. There is nothing else except a page showing a list of hypnotic sound effects such as seagulls, flowing water under a small bridge, light rain, birds singing and flowers blooming. How could a simple music hypnosis product be so high on the list for such a long time?

At this time, industry insiders told Leifeng.com reporter that the music hypnosis master is just a cover for PP red envelope. PP red envelopes are a tool used by a company claiming to be a professional ASO to inflate rankings . shock! How does a piece of hypnosis music top the charts?

A reporter from Leifeng.com searched for PP red envelopes on his mobile phone. The official website showed that he should first go to the App Store to download the "Red Envelope Assistant". How did it become a red envelope assistant again?

(PP red envelope prompts you to go to the App Store to download the red envelope assistant and then return to this page)

The reporter noticed that the PP red envelope had changed its appearance again. The new "Red Envelope Assistant" is even more powerful. It was launched in 2014 and first appeared on the "Product Guide" free list at No. 113 on February 16, 2016, and reached the top of the list on the 23rd, where it still remains.

Seeing this slap in the face result, Leifeng.com reporter felt sorry for Apple.

Malicious use of competitor keywords

Just like the "Music Hypnosis Master", there is nothing unusual about the PP red envelope after installation. When opened, it is a discount shopping guide similar to "9.9 free shipping". The Leifeng.com reporter returned to the browser page again according to the previous prompts. The browser automatically displayed "Logging in". Without any operation by the reporter, it turned into the following login interface.

What about the red envelope assistant?

Sorry, the Red Envelope Assistant is no longer available. When you open the Red Envelope Assistant, everything before disappears and you can never go back. Only a button is left. At any time, click the button to directly pop up the PP red envelope login interface in the browser.

And who is the manipulator behind the scenes? On the Red Envelope Assistant and Music Hypnosis Master apps, it is clearly shown that the copyright owner is "Qimai Technology" - in addition to a bunch of coupon applications, the current main business is ASO100 - " ASO Optimization Service".

Leifeng.com saw such a service on the official website of ASO100. What does it mean to “have an excellent keyword plan”? Take a look at how PP red envelopes work.

Opening the PP red envelope, it shows that there are 19 urgent tasks for today, namely "Search and download", "Direct download" and "Invite friends". The top ranked tasks are:

1. Search for "Lefeng" in the App Store;

2. Find the lips icon ranked about 33rd and download it;

3. After playing for 3 minutes, submit it for review and you can receive a reward of 1 yuan.

A reporter from Leifeng.com found the app on the App Store and discovered that it is called "Little Red Lips" and is a "short video space for sharing makeup, hairstyles, food and weight loss." Judging from the behavior of PP red envelopes, "Little Red Lips" is actually using the keyword "Lefeng" (Lefeng.com). This phenomenon is not accidental. This task list also includes keywords such as " Shenzhou Special Car ", "Yidao Car Rental", and "QQ Music", but the applications that need to be downloaded are not the original ones.

What is the most obvious consequence of this? A few days ago, Lagou and Boss Zhipin had a big fight, with Lagou accusing Boss Zhipin of manipulating the rankings: no matter you search for Lagou, Zhaopin, or LinkedIn in the App Store, Boss Zhipin will always appear at the first place in the display, squeezing out the keywords of its competitors. Think about it, in the past two years, whenever there is a fight between Apps, someone will always accuse the other side of cheating: when searching for the name of their own product, it is the competitor that appears. PP red envelopes are one of the executors of this kind of ranking manipulation behavior.

Industry insiders told Leifeng.com reporters that for a so-called "ASO optimization service", keyword optimization accounts for less than 20%, and the remaining 80% of the credit is attributed to ranking manipulation.

The "pyramid model" chain of recruiting apprentices: Go to the opponent's home to kill

When you think that the ranking is still as shown below, PP Red Packet has already built a platform for ranking.

Industry insiders told Leifeng.com that there are now 100 companies of all sizes on the market that use this channel to manipulate the rankings, but most of them make huge profits quietly. Qimai Technology, to which PP Red Packet belongs, has considerable influence because it uses the guise of ASO optimization and has spoken out in front of the media many times. On the ASO website owned by Qimai, it is marked that the number of users of its own App applications exceeds 100 million.

With a pingguo mobile phone, you can make #money, suitable for students, full-time housewives, easily earn 100 a day, add WeChat: xxxxxxxx

(You must have seen this sentence on forums, Weibo, and social networking sites)

But how can this method of circumventing Apple’s rules be promoted? This brings us to its pyramid promotion model. PP Red Packet advocates making money by recruiting apprentices: invite apprentices to join through invitation codes or QR codes. For each task completed by the apprentice, the master can get a reward of 10 yuan, with a maximum of 10 yuan for each apprentice. In order to stimulate users to recruit disciples, PP Red Packet also provides a disciple recruitment ranking list. The current maximum number of disciples has exceeded 24,000 (doesn’t it look a bit like a pyramid scheme?).

So where should I go to recruit disciples? PP Red Packet also provides a more detailed guide. The most effective method is: post in the comment section of competitors or popular apps to recruit disciples (this trick is too shady).

1. In the review section of other money-making apps in the Apple Store.

2. The review sections of other money-making apps in major Android app markets .

3. The software review section in the rankings of major Apple and Android app markets.

4. Under the Weibo posts of big Vs and popular Weibo posts.

PP red envelopes even encourage users to leave messages on social networking sites such as Zhihu, Tianya, Renren, and even video live streaming sites such as YY, Douyu, Youku and iQiyi.

“60% of the top 200 ads were placed here”

Industry insiders said that although the App Store's algorithm has been adjusted repeatedly, the ranking rules have basically not deviated from two indicators: reaching the App's description page (whether through search, jump or ranking click) + conversion behavior occurring on this page (downloads, comments, ratings, etc.). Therefore, by occupying popular keywords or directly increasing the number of downloads, the ranking can be effectively improved to a certain extent.

On the ASO100 website, it is clearly written: "60% of the top 200 ads on the list have been placed here." This data only represents PP Hongbao. According to people familiar with the matter, 80% of the top 100 apps on the App Store are manipulated.

At the same time, a reporter from Leifeng.com obtained a recent price report for chart manipulation from a certain channel. From this price list, we can see that keyword optimization and ranking manipulation are completely separate; by paying 220,000, you can push your application to the top 3, and you can also provide an invoice for formal cooperation.

Let’s go back to Qimai Technology. The ASO100 project was launched at a media conference in August last year, and the press release that month showed that revenue had reached 2 to 3 million per month. Previously, the person in charge of Qimai Technology told the media:

The core pain point of ASO in the current industry is the inflated traffic caused by virtual users. In the worst case scenario, the inflated traffic accounts for more than 90%. These fake users not only greatly reduce the efficiency of ASO, but also greatly increase the promotion costs of developers. Helping developers control ASO costs is also an important issue facing Qimai Technology.

Earlier, it was a common practice to use machines to simulate Apple IDs to increase the number of views. After being discovered by Apple officials, they cracked down on it. The "hardworking and smart" Chinese people then came up with a more "high-quality and low-cost" method of increasing the number of views. The PP red envelopes are even smarter, as they directly use the same software to send the data back to Apple, making "increasing the number of views" more convenient. However, using real users to increase the number of traffic is not much better than using machines to increase the number of traffic. Most users who come for profit will uninstall the app shortly after receiving the reward. It is just that the real ID is used to replace the machine ID to deceive Apple's rules, and the retention rate is still poor.

Regarding the PP red envelope project, a reporter from Leifeng.com contacted the founder of Qimai Technology and asked her the following questions. Unfortunately, the founder did not respond.

1. PP red envelopes are activated through Music Hypnosis Master (now Red Envelope Assistant). Does this comply with Apple Store rules?

2. What do you think about the difference between fake users inflating traffic and paying to induce real users to download?

However, the reporter from Leifeng.com could not help but sigh that PP Red Packet's approach was very clever. Even if Apple officially discovered that the Music Hypnosis Master application was inconsistent with the actual description and removed it from the shelves, it would have no impact on Qimai. There were probably dozens of "red envelope skins" waiting to take over in the background.

Leifeng.com reporter will not elaborate on the harm of manipulating the rankings. Previously, ASO100 claimed that the company attached great importance to technology, with technical personnel accounting for more than 70%, and it is the number one App Store data analysis platform in China. Is it really okay for such a gray industry as ranking manipulation to be disguised as a technology company?

Editor's note: The PP red envelopes and red envelope assistants introduced in this article belong to Qimai Technology and have nothing to do with Alibaba 's PP Assistant .

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