App Store ranking factors in 2026: what Apple confirms, what's contested, and what to work on first

Apple has published one sentence on this, on its App Store search page for developers:

Search results are based on a number of factors, including text relevance (matches for your app’s title, subtitle, keywords, and primary category), as well as user behavior (downloads, ratings and reviews, and more).

Two families, then: what your listing says, and what people do with it. "And more" means Apple isn't listing everything, so treat the rest of this post as ranked by evidence, not as a complete map. Here's every common candidate, sorted by what Apple has said about it:

Name, subtitle and keyword field give you 160 characters in total that Apple confirms are indexed. For a new app with few downloads, this is almost the whole game: you rank for the words in these fields or you don't rank at all.

• Name: brand plus what it does. Apple's product page guidance asks for a name that's "simple, memorable" and "hints at what your app does". "Brand — Category phrase" within 30 characters is the usual pattern. The highest-value phrase goes here.
• Subtitle: the second phrase. Apple suggests using it to "highlight features or typical uses", and warns against generic lines like "world's best app". A subtitle that names the audience or the outcome usually does both jobs.
• Keyword field: no repeats. Apple says: "Don't repeat any words included in your app name, subtitle, or category." Separate with commas and no spaces; spaces are allowed inside phrases. Skip "app" and category names, which waste characters.
• Don't use other apps' names. Competing app names, trademarks and irrelevant terms are banned in keywords, and Apple calls improper keywords "a common reason for App Store rejections". Details in our Guideline 2.3 page.
• Pick the category for the search, not the chart. Since Apple indexes both categories, choose the ones whose name matches what people type. Irrelevant categories are grounds for rejection.

Apple's own advice on keyword choice is worth repeating, because most indie apps ignore it: popular terms like "jobs" or "social" are "highly competitive – especially if you are a newer or smaller app", while less common terms bring less traffic but are easier to win. A small app ranking 3rd for a narrow phrase usually gets more downloads than one ranking 80th for a broad one. To see how this works for a real category, compare the names and subtitles in our calorie tracker snapshot.

Apple names downloads and ratings and reviews. It publishes no weights, and it doesn't say whether it measures downloads overall, downloads from search, or downloads after a particular search. Practitioners widely believe the last one matters — an app that people tap and install after searching a phrase is the most relevant result for that phrase — but Apple hasn't said so. What you can act on:

• Convert the impressions you already get. If your page turns more searchers into downloads, you collect the download signal Apple confirms. The first one to three screenshots appear in search results, so they're your search ad. Our app impressions page shows how to read the conversion rate in App Store Connect.
• Ask for ratings at the right moment. SKStoreReviewController can prompt "up to three times in a 365-day period", per Apple's ratings guidance. Ask after a success — a completed workout, a finished project — not on launch.
• Reset your rating only when it helps. You can reset the summary rating with a new version, but Apple warns that "having few ratings may discourage potential users". Written reviews stay either way.
• Reply to reviews. Apple notifies the reviewer when you respond, and they can update their review. Prioritize low ratings and bug reports.
• Send outside traffic. Downloads from your website, newsletter or social posts are still downloads. For an indie app, this is the most controllable way to move the behavior signal.

According to ASOitis, a new indie app should treat App Store ranking as two jobs in sequence: earn the right words in the name, subtitle and keyword field first, because Apple confirms those are indexed, then earn downloads and ratings for those words, because without the first job the second has nothing to attach to.

In June 2025, Appfigures reported what it called "the biggest App Store algorithm change": apps appeared to be ranking for phrases that existed only in their screenshot captions. Around the same time, Apple said at WWDC25 that it was using AI techniques to extract information from app metadata, including screenshots, to generate the new App Store tags, as TechCrunch reported.

Days later, ConsultMyApp tested it: 64 phrases taken from the screenshots of eight large apps. 36 didn't rank at all, 27 ranked but were already in the app's other metadata, and one was unexplained. Its conclusion: "There is no strong evidence Apple is broadly indexing screenshot titles."

Our read: the cost of hedging is zero. Write screenshot captions for people first, and where it reads naturally, use the same phrases as your name and subtitle. If Apple indexes them, you gain; if it doesn't, the captions still explain the app to the person looking at search results.

These don't change your default page's rank, but they change what appears when someone searches. All are documented on Apple's App Store search page:

• Custom product pages with keywords. You can assign keywords to a custom product page so it shows in search for those keywords "rather than your default product page". Each keyword combination can belong to only one page. Useful when one app serves two audiences.
• App tags. Search results may show tags that "are generated using large language models (LLMs) based on the metadata you've provided". You can review them in App Store Connect. Clear, specific metadata gives the model better material.
• In-App Events. Event cards show in search results next to your app, but only to people who've downloaded it before; everyone else sees your screenshots.
• Promoted in-app purchases. Up to 20 can appear on your product page and in search results.
• New creative assets. In August 2026 Apple announced new assets for product page headers and search results, planned for this fall. Check what's live in App Store Connect before you redesign.

One more that's widely used and not documented as a ranking rule: localizations. Apple's localization table lists nine additional languages supported on the US storefront, including Spanish (Mexico) and Chinese (Simplified). Many ASO practitioners fill those locales' keyword fields to add US search coverage. Apple hasn't said those fields are indexed for US searches, so treat it as a tactic to test, not a rule.

1. Choose 10–20 phrases you can win. Specific, relevant, and searched — not the category head term. This decides everything else.
2. Put the best phrase in the name and the next in the subtitle. These are the strongest fields Apple confirms.
3. Fill the keyword field to the last character with words not already in the name, subtitle or category.
4. Check the category. Primary and secondary are both indexed.
5. Fix the first three screenshots. They appear in search results and decide whether a searcher installs.
6. Add a rating prompt after a success moment. Three asks a year; use them well.
7. Measure for four weeks, then change one field. Apple's App Analytics lets you filter impressions and conversion by source, including App Store search.