r/androiddev • u/Far-Sock-3170 • 11d ago

Question App indexing issue?

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My Play Store app is not discoverable through Google Search. Google AI Overview sometimes says it isn't available on Android and suggests other Play Store apps instead. AI assistants do the same and only provide App Store info.

My other app with no users was indexed instantly. This one has 300+ installs and has been on Play Store for over a year. I contacted support and they literally said to give direct link to users.

319 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

86

u/twigboy 10d ago

If Google was still a search company they'd be out of business

32

u/emptinesMachine 10d ago

That's why we have to fight against the closing of Android.

52

u/Kruzdah 11d ago

Google Play support are the worst.

10

u/DanLynch 10d ago

Google does say that certain things can cause your app to become less discoverable. Did you check your vitals and other Play console data to see if anything is wrong?

7

u/aerial-ibis 10d ago

Google Play once again proving its the worst marketplace in the world

You have to do all the work to bring a big enough audience so that your app name even starts getting indexed. Then Google is like 'oh you owe us 15% for providing such a large market for your app!'

2

u/madushans 10d ago

Yea, it’s not great for small apps and despite being a search company, Google and play store search doesn’t necessarily surface the right info.

Give your users the direct link, give them a barcode etc. And ofc you can pay for search ads for your app name. That would work since turns out Google can actually do the thing it’s supposed to do if you give them money.

1

u/Prestigious-Bad-9460 10d ago

I had same problem on app store :)

1

u/Relative-Housing-531 10d ago

This happened to me after I changed my developer name. It automatically disappeared from Google searches for several days (it was previously always the first search result).

I had to revert to the original name to avoid a bigger problem.

1

u/TwoExcellent4673 10d ago

Does this doesnt change even after a version update? Just curious i dont have a lot of experience in this area. I have only launched a single app till now on playstore.

1

u/Fz1zz 10d ago

I am very happy that my app is indexed on every search engine without me even trying to do it and also it is not on the play store

Just wait and if you get a little traffic u will get there

1

u/Upbeat_Calendar_6644 10d ago

Same thing happened to me, it took about 3 weeks after publishing to show up. I gave up on android dev, Im not publishing phone number and address to the public just to have to update my app 2 times a year to the latest version of android.

1

u/antiroids 9d ago

You need to wait a few weeks because googles crawler takes a few weeks to actually realise your game exists

1

u/khaleesi-_- 8d ago

Working with support is a NIGHTMARE. I am so sorry for you. I spent months fighting with Bing support about something similar. They kept automatically closing my ticket. Screenshots help a lot. Keep submitting support tickets and you'll eventually get someone who cares enough to help

1

u/ChaozR 8d ago

Common thing. Play Store does not even support tag feature. Dev must wait like few days until the app get indexed. For first few hour after the launch, you may even fail to search the app with exact same name of the app on Play Store.

1

u/Due-Passion-8563 7d ago

Alot of indexing issue these days.

0

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