On December 30, 2023, we detected an anomaly in ranks. We detected an unusual rank movement.
Impact of PlayStore Anomaly of December 2023
It influenced app rankings, increased fluctuations, and therefore has impacted keyword-based app discovery.
What We Know So Far
We are studying the contributing factors. These range from potential contributors ranging from Google’s A/B testing initiatives to algorithm changes or unforeseen anomalies within the system. What is certain is that this phenomenon extends beyond geographical boundaries, affecting users and applications worldwide.
For instance, here’s ranking movement of apps in rummy segment:
As one can see, app #2, 3 have seen their keyword count reducing by 50%. The overall eligible count was about 2k here.
As we mentioned earlier, this fluctuation is visible across all categories and geographies – across all sample sizes, take finance category for instance (random selection from top 100):
Similarly, let’s take two of the apps in top 10 of Finance category:
Our assumption:
- In 2022, Google rolled out a major change – but the rank movements and UI change were interrelated. It took 45 days for ranks to recover. However, Google started experimenting months before that.
- In 2023, PlayStore A/B tested with device level ratings, and the changes were rolled back within 24 hours.
- We feel that this change will be rolled back. However, there is a new, major update coming up.
- We will keep updating this article with further updates.