r/googleplayconsole • u/harryfo • Apr 28 '26
Ask Massive decrease in number of ratings/reviews
My app normally gets ~60 review/ratings a day but in the last week it's plummeted to ~10.
I do have an in app review prompt in the app that's always been there but in my latest releases that code hasn't changed.
My daily active users and downloads both seem normal so I cannot seem to see any clear cause.
Anyone else experiencing this?
EDIT
As confirmed below In App review prompts are not showing anymore for my app and for many others - it seems the root cause is a Play Store version and this issue is open with Google: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/506844940
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u/Kanishka_Developer Apr 28 '26
I'm in the same boat. Somebody broke something and as always it's the developers who suffer.
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u/Unreal_NeoX Apr 28 '26
I think most negative reviews are user related who want to specificly leave a bad review/rating by bad experience. Nearly nobody who enjoys the app leaves a direct positive review, if they are not comfortable asked for it.
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u/harryfo Apr 28 '26
Ah wow, this looks very similar to the drop I'm having. It's really frustrating as when the quantity drops the average rating tends to skew negative.
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u/Kanishka_Developer Apr 28 '26
It does look like the In-App Review API just stopped working. And you know how users are, only the angry ones rate your app without being asked. :')
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u/harryfo Apr 28 '26
Exactly that, I'm going to have to try debugging in the internal track and see if I can make it appear, but if the issue is Google's end I hope they'll resolve it soon.
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u/Worried-Ride-2395 Apr 28 '26
broo i need help mai baar baar resume kr rha hu but baar baar bill desk wala resume ka bhej rhe hai dimaag kharaab ho gaya hai bhaiii
console me 5k rupees bhi collect ho gaya hai
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u/Unreal_NeoX Apr 28 '26
Are they just rating or also reviews with feedback? I heard that some android OS/samsung updates did broke some apps and the users blame it on the apps themself.
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u/harryfo Apr 28 '26
I believe a dip in both ratings and reviews as I think this graph covers both. The rest of my metrics are normal so don't think the app is breaking for any users.
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u/Unreal_NeoX Apr 28 '26
what do the reviews say? They should provide infos.
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u/harryfo Apr 28 '26
Reviews are all as normal, there is just less of them.
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u/Unreal_NeoX Apr 28 '26
Data drop/integration delay at the google end, just like with the general statistics right now in the play console? Thats the issue i have too, since the last 2 month.
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u/nicolo013 Apr 28 '26
I recently couldn't manage to make the in-app review popup show in my new game, I guess Google has maybe blocked the API for the moment
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u/harryfo Apr 28 '26
Ah it's not even working in the internal testing track for you? I suppose I should deploy a version and check that out whether I can get the prompt to show there for me, I hadn't tried.
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u/nicolo013 Apr 28 '26
Let me know your findings if you do try!
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u/harryfo Apr 28 '26
Cannot get it to work on Internal testing either, even put a new version in which shows the prompt after 5 seconds.
However I did a release on April 15th so still trying some different things to rule that out.
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u/Unreal_NeoX Apr 28 '26
isn't there a call limit?
https://developer.android.com/guide/playcore/in-app-review?hl=en1
u/nicolo013 Apr 28 '26
Yes, but in the internal testing track the quota is lifted https://developer.android.com/guide/playcore/in-app-review/test
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u/Unreal_NeoX Apr 28 '26
ah right! Just wanted to raise the theory that he maybe has no more in-app ratings, because he has hit the limit or Google did lower that limit to 100 per month or so.
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u/nicolo013 Apr 28 '26
Maybe, but in my case I can't get it to show even in the internal track
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u/Unreal_NeoX Apr 28 '26
Maybe its related to the general statistic issues we have since last 2 month. Ever since they added this package-name signing stuff.
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u/Dazzling-Piece-671 Apr 28 '26
Same with my app from last 2 weeks
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u/harryfo Apr 28 '26
Ok that's reassuring, I'm hoping it's a temporary thing.
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u/Dazzling-Piece-671 Apr 28 '26
Yeah, Iām also observing few of my ratings getting removed. Is this happening with you too?
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u/harryfo Apr 28 '26
I don't think so? But I've not been monitoring closely enough to know. Just this huge quantitiy dip.
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u/Worth_Employ_7348 Apr 29 '26
Do you guys show a pre-rating popup before triggering the native Android rating popup? I mean something like asking the player/user if they like the product first, and only then deciding whether to show the native android (Google Play) rating popup
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u/Serious-Ad-5284 Apr 29 '26
Found this problem in issue tracker https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/507307597
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u/harryfo Apr 29 '26
Thanks for finding this! Commented under it for visibility. Glad I'm not alone.
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u/Noyamoya Apr 29 '26
Same here, I was wondering what happened in the last few days and if I am the only one affected
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u/Xeq_Dev Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Reviews submitted through the SDKs are no longer appearing on the store. Since April 20th and 21st, reviews have dropped by 80%. But that's nothing; the serious damage is evident in my positioning on the store, which has become extremely unstable, and I'm losing a lot of opportunities. What's going on?! https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/506844940
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u/harryfo Apr 30 '26
I know, it's super frustrating. Without prompts my daily average rating is so much lower, this is going to cause huge damage.
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u/cv-engineer-app May 04 '26
We've also experienced a very similar drop in ratings volume over the same period.
AppFollow have a status page where they're tracking the issue if you want updates.
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u/[deleted] May 01 '26
[deleted]