App Store popularity rankings tilt towards paid apps

Apple has adjusted the search algorithms used on its App Store to rank the popularity of applications, assigning more weight to paid apps, and making user ratings more of a factor.

Greg Raiz of developer Raizlabs contacted PocketGamer.biz about the first element of the changes. "Some initial tests show that paid applications are getting as much as a 20X bump in popularity compared with free applications," he says.

Raizlabs has both a free and paid version of its Word Popper puzzler in the App Store, as well as other apps.

"For some of our applications we typically get a 20x download rate of free to paid. With the recent change some of our paid applications are showing up as more popular then the same free application."

There were rumours that Apple was planning such a move around Mobile World Congress. Other developers have confirmed the changes to PocketGamer.biz today.

It seems the changes are taking time to filter through - on the UK App Store's Action games section, 18 out of the top 20 games are still freebies when you rank by popularity, for example.

Raiz thinks that the new policy will encourage more developers to charge for their applications.

"A common practice is to make a game free, boost its popularity and then switch it over to paid. This technique will no longer work and may instead send applications falling quickly in popularity."

In a separate change to the App Store, user reviews are now sorted according to the version of an app that they refer to - meaning consumers won't be presented with negative reviews of a game that's since been improved through updates.

It's great to see Apple making these kinds of changes, as they should make it easier for iPhone and iPod touch users to find the best apps and games.

Another rumour around MWC was that Apple was planning to give user ratings more prominence in its App Store popularity algorithm. No news yet on whether that's happened in the new changes.

Developers have been calling for tweaks to the App Store search algorithms for some time, so Apple's response will be welcome indeed. And for once, the secrecy is probably necessary, in order to (in theory) prevent people gaming the new algorithm.

PocketGamer.biz has contacted Apple for confirmation of the changes, and will update this story when we receive a response.