ASO Monthly # 17: September 2017

The release of a book on ASO, the launch of iOS 11, etc.

In the ASO Monthly series of articles, we are considering the events of the past month and pay attention to the trends of the ASO, changes in algorithms, ideas for optimizing the conversion and updates in services.

ASO news for September 2017

September 7

Published a full 370-page ACO guide from Moritz Daan and Gabe Kwachi (asoebook.com). The experience of leading experts in the mobile marketing industry, including ASO, seasoned with professional tips for advanced optimization, forms the appropriate basis for creating an ASO strategy.


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9th of September

Following the Apple App Store updates, Google Play is testing some of the changes for the whole world, namely the new navigation bar . Its main update is the “For You” tab, located among other elements of the panel, which may attract more user attention. Later, TheTool also wrote a post about the Editor’s Choice tab and its organization on Google Play, the update of which contains an improved division into categories of interest, rather than a simple selection of apps and games marked by Google Play, as it was before.


New view of the "Editor's Choice" tab on Google Play

A day earlier, Google Play announced plans in its blog for Android developers to promote the growth of indie developers by adding an “indie corner” on Google Play.

September 13

iTunes Connect is prepared to update iOS 11, and the headers are now limited to just 30 characters.
Also in the ASO Stack group, we noticed that the Description field is blocked under the status “Ready for sale”, Deniz Gur confirmed that this change occurred with the release of iOS 11 beta, which was meant as a request for its indexing. Although this has not happened yet.
A member of our group in Slack, Peter Smith, noticed a change in the new iTunes for MacOS. Some inconveniences can be caused by the fact that Apple has removed the option of browsing iOS applications on MacOS - and this does not allow ASO-managers to easily check the localized ranking of their applications, etc.

September 14

The top charts for iPad apps are back to normal (according to data from Mithun Jawar of ASO Slack).



Somewhere on August 22-23, the App Store changed the list of top applications on the iPad and first of all showed specific applications, ignoring universal ones. A member of our group in Slack, Mithun Jawar, reported on September 14 that the top applications had returned to their original state.

September 14

Jessica Baysigo (Blinkist, a member of our channel in Slack) shared detailed information about a mysterious bug that causes apps that have a preview in iOS 11 App Store to show only the second and third screenshots next to the preview of the app in the search. Especially this bug has affected developers who divide one image into the first two screenshots (as in HBO Now in the images below) - due to the “ruggedness” of the picture, they may face a conversion recession. Apple confirmed to Jessica that this is a bug, and it should be fixed with the release of iOS 11 (September 19).


At the time of publication, in October, the problem is still not resolved.

September 15th

After launching the service for Search Ads from MobileAction, AppTweak followed suit . SA Intelligence provides information on which applications for which keys are displayed in Search Ads, and what percentage of users' attention each of them receives. They also show a list of keywords that you and your competitors pay for. By adding customized reminders, you can monitor any changes in your account in real time (for example, budget consumption).


"Impression share" in MobileAction


“Share of Voice” in Apptweak

September 19

A major release day (iOS 11).
IOS 11 changes are now publicly available. Most of them have already been reviewed in detail in our July article.
As for the new iOS 11 release, Apple has increased the application size limit for cloud downloads from 100 MB to 150 MB (according to Ilya Kukharev from Aviasales).
Also, today AppTweak added subtitles and advertising texts to its interface. Now ASOshniki can evaluate the level of their optimization in accordance with the latest changes. Also, the service allows you to compare these elements with competitors, which is particularly important for analyzing competition and adjusting your strategy.

September 20

Daniel Paris published a post in which amazing experimental results were demonstrated: backlinks and their text have a direct impact on Google Play ASO. He is conducting an experiment with a 301 redirect from the domain to the link of his application in the Play Store.

September 22nd

Thomas Petit (8fit) reports that developers are now able to save or reset their scores in iOS 11. However, the problem has not yet been resolved that even before the release of this option, some developers have unintentionally lost their ratings and reviews.



Gabe Kwachi later provided more detailed information about the problem of inadvertently dumping ratings:

Not all grades disappear, but grades on the version of applications dated September 19

iOs 11 summary

Members of the ASO Stack Artem Lytaev community together with Ilya Kukharev and Alexandra Lomachenko from Splitmetrics published a wonderful article aggregating the changes in the ASO related to the release of iOs 11.

Thank you, this is all for September!

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Translation prepared by Organic Growth Marketing team from Appache Studio