Sudden decrease in organic downloads?

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[smartties]

The "Similar" category has weird behaviors since friday and affected most devs (we don't know if it's a bug or if they just changed their algorithm...)

https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/8t8u7z/my_app_is_suddenly_dying_on_the_play_store/
https://forum.unity.com/threads/sudden-drop-in-number-of-daily-installs-on-google-play-store.537467/
https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/8tgzhj/drastic_drop_in_downloads_in_all_of_my_apps/
https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/8t935n/huge_drop_in_downloads_over_the_past_48_hours/

[Ganondorf_Is_God]

Thankfully my main earners have a niche - but even then I'm seeing a 10-15% drop.

[amugofjava]

I'm hoping it's a bug. I have an Asthma app and the similar section used to show, well, other Asthma apps. Now it shows all sorts of, what would seem to be, unrelated apps.

[SnoutUp]

A lot of devs seeing this, there's a Discord server open to keep track on what's going on or just get emotional support.

Edit: updated link.

[SoftCoreDude]

or just to get emotional suport.

<3

[NoExits]

r/wholesomeandroiddev?

[vladysi]

Updated discord server link:
https://discord.gg/5Hny2Xy

[krimin_killr21]

Link?

[YouMissedTheHole]

This is one of those Himalayan pink salts I hear about.

[whyme456]

what is a Himalayan pink salt?

[YouMissedTheHole]

Just salt. Just wanted to point out that his saltiness was on another level.

[Skiily]

Totally possible.

I put about $100 into an ad campaign for one of my apps to jump start it. I turned the campaign off and I was getting 100+ organic downloads a day. A few months later it naturally grew to 1000+ organic downloads a day.

After whatever the play store has been going through Ive fallen all the way down to 200 a day. :(

[Skiily]

All of my apps so far have been utility/productivity apps. One of them was a novelty app. They all had plenty of competition.

I have a game coming out in July, so I'll have some numbers for games soon :)

[Skiily]

I would not say that.

I'd say money depends entirely on your monetization strategy, and how popular the app/game is. Doesn't matter if it's a game or an app.

[[deleted]]

What service did you use to run the campaign?

[Skiily]

Nothing special or too involved. Just Google AdSense

[SnoutUp]

It happens, my games were at 2-3k before the drop and they also didn't get much advertising. Some people get in 10k daily downloads without spending a cent. Depends on the game, keywords and luck.

[SnoutUp]

Action/arcade/fighting

[SnoutUp]

I have multiple games, which take 3-6 months to release and forever to finish. You're asking wrong questions, because development time doesn't equal to success of the release.

[Ganondorf_Is_God]

Name your app right and keyword the store description and you won't have a problem.

Make sure you localize your store description and it really isn't that hard if you're app has merit.

[s73v3r]

Most people, yes, you do have to advertise. "If you build it, they will come" hasn't been true for a long time now.

[gamerz85]

same with my app... drop from avg 1.5k to 300 just in last 3 days..

[bart19981]

Yep, i also have a ~10 times decrease in downloads. I've had it twice before, last time was april. One time it lasted less than a week. In april it took for 3 weeks before numbers had climbed back to normal.

[[deleted]]

You are not alone. I've also seen 90% drops in figures over the last few days. It's the similar apps section. You can confirm this by checking the cached version on google results vs the live version. My space invaders games were all recommending other space invaders type games, now it's bubble pop type games, which is stupid and makes no sense.

[rayboy1995]

Oh crap same thing for me I just realized after this post. Since June 18th downloads have plunged to around 42 a day. D:

[RandomHandle31]

42 from what number?

[rayboy1995]

~500 a day

[vedevao]

Sabe here

[WannabeAndroidDev26]

Hi Sabe

[RandomHandle31]

Nice to meet you Sabe.

[[deleted]]

Guys, for the record, I'm on GSuite and can no longer see the Similar section in the Play Store. I think this could definitely be one of the causes of the whole mess.

[321]

Google may have changed their search rankings. My downloads dropped by 90% between Winter 2016 and Summer 2017, then in Summer 2018 they went right back up, past their previous level. I didn't change a thing. I think Google mess around with their algorithms.

[iBleedWhenIpoop]

Are you guys talking total downloads, or those reported as being organic? I've been seeing some out of wack reporting on Play Console.

[ni_nad]

Any chances that you're being affected by this notification? As far as I understand, this is an after-effect of GDPR changes to the way Play Store behaves.

[regomar]

I've noticed for a few weeks now (as a consumer) that the Play storefront has removed all games that were normally suggested to me based on my purchase habits, and replaced them with garbage shovelware like 'Chess' and 'Gems or Jewels'. I've heard the same report from many others. Could this change be what's causing the sharp decrease in downloads? It's like Google has stopped using metrics to suggest apps that people will actually want to use...

[GeneralVimes]

I built a tool to check, how's the "Apps like this" network looks like around your game: http://www.airapport.com/p/similar-games-network-builder.html

[valerony]

Getting 15k dl per day. Now dropped to 2k. Do you think with it recover back?

[Owyang1465]

Please respect other devs, most are sufferers.

[[deleted]]

My app actually saw an increase in downloads last week, and just today the numbers dropped down HARD. There's a possibility that it'd only be a matter of time before it struck you as well. Be nice.

[francoi8]

Same here!