Apple has tweaked the App Store’s search engine to help users find the right apps even when they’re misspelled, according to a TechCrunch report. This means that developers with apps that either have tricky spellings or spacings should see a boost in traffic. Previously, misspelled searches were hardly ever leading to users discovering the right apps.
A recent change to Apple’s App Store search engine now leads to improved search results for misspelled queries with small typos, we’ve learned. In addition, searchers looking for an app they know by name, but are unsure if it has spaces in the title, are also seeing better results. For example, those looking for the highly ranked “QuizUp” game wouldn’t have found it before if they had typed in “Quiz Up” with a space. Now it appears.
Mobile app marketer Fiksu and SEO firm SearchMan also confirmed the changes. SearchMan compared common misspellings in the App Store and Google Play, and Google Play provided exponentially more results every time (pictured in the above chart). It’s hard to believe that the App Store has been that bad at search for so long, but at least this is a good step in the right direction.
Another recent report said that Apple has been experimenting with smarter app rankings based on positive and negative user reviews.
Source: TechCrunch
