Is Apple going to provide an official ranking service? Maybe everyone is happy!

Perhaps in the near future, we will be able to see Apple’s official “ ranking-boosting ” service.

The latest news indicates that Apple has a team of 100 people working on the reform of the App Store, and the person leading this project is Todd Teresi, who was previously in charge of Apple's iAd advertising business.

The purpose of the reform is to allow developers to better display their applications, which includes charging developers a certain fee for better display. The specific form may be similar to Google Play 's "paid search" method, allowing developers to display their applications at the forefront when users search for certain specific keywords.

The term "paid search" used by foreign media sounds confusing, so we searched it on Baidu and got a more down-to-earth name "bidding ranking".

Same as paid ranking

Speaking of paid ranking, I believe domestic users are not too unfamiliar with it. The most common way is that buyers purchase some specific keywords to make their own websites appear in the search results with higher priority.

The bidding ranking currently adopted by Google Play was reported by iFanr last year and is very similar to this.

After developers purchase certain specific phrases, whenever users search for these phrases, the applications they develop will be displayed as the first search result, thereby attracting users to click to download.

Although Google has attached an obvious AD label to remind users that this is an advertisement, I believe that many people still habitually express their disgust for paid rankings.

But in reality, not all application developers think this way.

Developer Dilemma and Solutions

After years of development, Google Play has millions of applications, providing users with a rich selection of applications, bringing rich income to countless application developers, and forming a good ecosystem.

But behind these millions of apps, Google Play has actually been criticized by developers for a long time, because the increase in apps has made the app market more and more "crowded", and it has become more difficult for new apps to be discovered by users.

This is also a problem that App Store developers have to face.

At this point, developers will find ways to present the application to users, and two solutions are born based on this.

One is to find ways to improve the ranking within the application, which gave rise to a gray industry chain - ranking manipulation.

However, this behavior of manipulating the rankings is very unfair to individual developers, and turns application development into a capital competition.

Therefore, the authorities have been cracking down on this kind of behavior, constantly changing the ranking algorithms of the market rankings and correcting the data of the rankings.

Another channel is much more serious and can provide relatively accurate advertising , that is, through social networks.

Facebook and Twitter analyze big data of user behavior on their platforms and are able to deliver advertisements based on user preferences, making them the choice of many application developers.

This situation indirectly prompted Google Play to launch a bidding ranking system.

Google's paid ranking

As one of the world's largest advertising companies, Google saw a new advertising market at this time. Since outsiders could do it, it showed that there was market demand, so there was no reason for it not to do it.

So, perhaps they borrowed ideas from a certain Eastern technology company and started selling keyword bidding rankings.

The paid ranking in Google Play is based on user searches. Combined with Google's many years of experience in search advertising, its delivery is more accurate and efficient, bringing good growth data to developers and gaining popularity among developers.

If Apple finally introduces paid ranking to the App Store this time, I believe it will provide developers with better display opportunities and enable them to earn more income.

A happy ending

App developers need a way to better showcase their apps, but so far there is no better way to solve this problem.

Until there is a better solution, the form of paid ranking is more like a deformed product caused by market demand.

But fortunately, the result is a win-win situation. Through this form of application market, higher profits can be obtained, and developers can also obtain more accurate product display.

As for whether it will disgust users, I believe Apple will control it well and the first screen will not be filled with advertisements.

Illustrations from: life, AppMasters, SmallBiztrends, 07073