So are they insinuating that Google App Store “popularity” ranking is actually paid product placement?
this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2025
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It probably is
Isn't the idea that if you advertise you will get more people looking at/downloading your app and therefore rank higher?
It doesn't make it not paid product placement, but I don't think it implies that people are buying spots on the ranking.
It does imply the rank is almost useless because most high rankers are just spending a lot on ads.
I thought “google shopping ads” were those “click here to purchase from…” ads that show up when you search for something like a t-shirt, or a vacuum. Not ads for the app.
Ah I guess it's that it shows what they want then they have to install the app to buy it?
I've bought stuff from Temu and without installing the app. I'm sure it recommends installing the app if you tap the ad on a phone, but not on desktop.
Isn’t the idea that if you advertise you will get more people looking at/downloading your app and therefore rank higher?
That is what advertising companies would like you to believe but the effect is nowhere near this drastic, otherwise they would be showing double-blind studies about the effectiveness of advertising to all their customers all the time.
Maybe this article is intended for advertisers to convince them of the value.
Do you REALLY think that Threads is one of the top 4 downloaded apps on Android? "EasyHomescreen" is number 5.
Here is my guess for top 5 downloaded Android apps:
- Snapchat
- Tiktok
- ?
- ?
I would be surprised if Facebook and X were up there but not that surprised.
My guess would be that none of the big, well known brands are in the top ten and that those are instead useful utilities that almost everybody uses but rarely talks about.
I'm trying to think of what useful utilities I've had that I had to download from the app store, which didn't come pre-installed. I don't think Material Files, JuiceSSH, Notally, Shazam, etc could be more popular than something mainstream like Instagram.
I wonder if there is a list somewhere. For example, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-downloaded_Google_Play_applications lists a lot of apps that come pre-installed, like Google Maps.
The reason why I was thinking it would utilities is that the big name brand social media stuff often pays to come pre-installed.
I wouldn't count that as top 10 downloaded either, but I see how they would count as top installed apps or top most popular.
Facebook isn't there because it now comes pre-installed on nearly every phone in existence, and is often baked so hard into the core OS that it's impossible to remove without flashing a custom ROM. If you're lucky you might be able to disable Meta slop without bricking core functions of the phone. Removal is usually impossible.
Oh dang. It hasn't been pre-installed on any of my phones, but I try to get close to the stock Android experience. Except now with Pixel stuff I'm not always sure what's stock and what's pixel specific.
or simply that people were mostly installing the app after seeing ads for it.
The title misled me here, I think. It sounded like an indictment that Temu stopped showing Google ads in its product then its ranking in Google Play dropped, but I don't think it's that.
Sounds like Temu was paying for ads to get users, and without those ads people stopped turning to it for shopping. Also,
The timing coincided with the Trump administration’s hardened stance on Chinese imports, raising tariffs to 125%
Perhaps the actual main factor.
And I am sure that has absolutely nothing to do with tariff hell, financial insecurity, and repeal of the de minimis exemption that temu and the like required to function.
Surely this has nothing to do with the loophole their entire shitty business was built around being closed.