Is Apple Changing How it Ranks Apps?

Anthony Wayne    Mobile Apps     apple, apps, rankings

Looks like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) might be putting a more sophisticated—and potentially more helpful—spin on how it ranks the most popular apps in its ginormous App Store, which currently features an almost inconceivable 350,000+ apps in its catalog. But the news comes amidst allegations that Apple is at the same time making it harder for pay-per-install apps to make their way into the store.

According to some observations from the mobile app analytics firm Flurry, in the last three days, the rankings for several popular apps have been jumping: for example, Facebook has jumped to the number-one ranking, having previously placed between 10th place and 20th place.

One good guess from InsideMobileApps is that Apple has started to factor in active usage into its rankings, rather than basing those rankings on downloads alone, which is similar to how Google (NSDQ: GOOG) ranks apps in the Android Market.

This makes sense, particularly in a market that has been around for long enough now to have an established base of consumers who have definitely taken their foot off the download gas, but might still be heavy app users.

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