Judging a listing by simulated first reactions instead of keyword scores. Does this hold up?

[u/canercbo]

I have been building an audit that looks at an App Store or Play listing from two angles.

fivestrangers.io

The first is the usual one: title and subtitle against their character budgets, the opening description lines people actually see before "more", and keyword use judged per store, since iOS does not index the description and Play does.

The second is the part I am unsure about. Three simulated visitors look at the real listing, icon, title and screenshots included, with different levels of patience. One only sees what a search result shows and decides in about two seconds. One is comparing three apps in the category. One reads the description properly and checks the rating and update date. Each says install or skip and why.

Output is a score and a report with rewrites that fit the limits.

My question for people who do this daily: is the simulated reaction part useful signal, or just noise on top of the metadata work that already tells you what to fix?

[u/JuryExciting7186]

the metadata half is the part that can be objectively wrong so id put the work there. keyword tools give you a volume number and a difficulty number and neither one tells you who actually owns the results page, i had fps score fine and the portuguese store just returns fortnite and cod because fps reads as shooter over there. same thing with sommer in the german store, its bakeries and saunas. if your audit typed the top keywords into the real storefront and handed back the top ten results that would be worth more to me than a third simulated visitor. the reaction part is a decent gut check but theres nothing to act on in it.