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Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

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Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#1

Post by TrianguloY »

Due to the recent Play Store changes you can no longer "add text or images that indicate store performance or ranking, or suggest relations to existing Google Play programs in the app title" [1]. You can't, for example, add "#1", "best" or "free". However, you can't also add "no ads".

To be precise: appending "[small, no ads]", "[no ads]" or "[without ads]" to the play store app title causes a rejection. I didn't want to test more in fear of banning, and in the end removed it. I know you can see if an app contains ads in the app page, but not in the search results... or at least not yet, but I doubt Google will add that indication.

[1] https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#2

Post by PennRobotics »

Google's curation of the Play Store, while protecting their own economic interests, feels a bit like a dark pattern. The fact that adding " n" to most keywords prompts " no ads" in the suggestions shows how popular this is.

If I search for "tuner", I get two sponsored results first, then five ad-containing results with average 4.4 rating, then an ad-free app with 4.9 stars.

My preference would be searching by rating with a minimum number of installs. Even using the 4.5+ filter seems to be the quickest way to find completely ad-free apps. But, what really works best (but never quickest) for many apps is to find an APK somewhere else, like Github.

Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#5

Post by onion2k »

xd1936 wrote: post #3

It will definitely improve the readability of Play Store lists to have those titles removed.

That would make sense if, say, any phrase in square brackets was the reason for the rejection. The fact it appears to be only "no ads" means that clearly isn't the reason.

Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#6

Post by PrimeDirective »

PennRobotics wrote: post #2

Google's curation of the Play Store, while protecting their own economic interests, feels a bit like a dark pattern. The fact that adding " n" to most keywords prompts " no ads" in the suggestions shows how popular this is. If I search for "tuner", I get two sponsored results first, then five ad-containing results with average 4.4 rating, then an ad-free app with 4.9 stars. My preference would be searching by rating…

Sorry for the offtopic, but can you tell me the name of the ad-less tuner app? I've been searching for one, but the best I found was Fender's. Which is pretty ok, too.

Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#8

Post by tambre »

PrimeDirective wrote: post #6
PennRobotics wrote: post #2

Google's curation of the Play Store, while protecting their own economic interests, feels a bit like a dark pattern. The fact that adding " n" to most keywords prompts " no ads" in the suggestions shows how popular this is. If I search for "tuner", I get two sponsored results first, then five ad-containing results with average 4.4 rating, then an ad-free app with 4.9 stars. My preference would be searching by rating…

Sorry for the offtopic, but can you tell me the name of the ad-less tuner app? I've been searching for one, but the best I found was Fender's. Which is pretty ok, too.

I also ended up with Fender's, but it wasn't terribly responsive so eventually purchased a strobe tuner [0]. Has some disadvantages over something like a smartphone, but better for my simple usage.

[0]: https://www.thomann.de/intl/ee/peterson_stroboclip_hd.htm

Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#10

Post by praptak »

PennRobotics wrote: post #2

Google's curation of the Play Store, while protecting their own economic interests, feels a bit like a dark pattern. The fact that adding " n" to most keywords prompts " no ads" in the suggestions shows how popular this is. If I search for "tuner", I get two sponsored results first, then five ad-containing results with average 4.4 rating, then an ad-free app with 4.9 stars. My preference would be searching by rating…

> My preference would be searching by rating with a minimum number of installs

This problem has a better solution - sort/search by the lower confidence bound for the rating: https://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating...

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