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Re:Android search engine poor results is damaging top applic... by oflannabhra on Wednesday July 27, 2011 @08:52AM (#2811890)
Even just as a user, I've noticed this. Discovering good, reputable apps has become more difficult. The best way I've discovered to see a collection of functionally similar apps is to find one app that does close to what I want, then select the "related" link. It gives a much more useful list of apps than searching based on keywords.
Re:Android search engine poor results is damaging top applic... by espinchi on Wednesday July 27, 2011 @09:28AM (#2812013)
Good trick. They are different algorithms, and it looks like the guys working on the search of relevant, similar apps are doing a better job! (I know one of them personally, so I may be biased.)
Re:Android search engine poor results is damaging top applic... by j_col on Wednesday July 27, 2011 @08:47AM (#2811872)
This issue is getting some coverage in the Register today: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/27/android_market_searc...
Re:Android search engine poor results is damaging top applic... by espinchi on Wednesday July 27, 2011 @08:10AM (#2811765)
A change in the algorithm for the search in the Android market is literally killing top applications, making them very difficult to discover.

It's paradoxical that this comes from the #1 search engine.

Re:Android search engine poor results is damaging top applic... by ompemi on Wednesday July 27, 2011 @08:16AM (#2811777)
We've had a decrease in the number of downloads since 1st July of 50%. Our app cannot be found by its name. This is incredible.
Re:Android search engine poor results is damaging top applic... by ern on Wednesday July 27, 2011 @08:58AM (#2811914)
It's paradoxical that this comes from the #1 search engine.

Not the first time something like this has happened. Their Groups search was broken a few years ago as well, and it took some effort to get them to finally fix it: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/usenet/

Re:Android search engine poor results is damaging top applic... by espinchi on Wednesday July 27, 2011 @09:21AM (#2811981)
We launched a new application just when this issue started: our application didn't appear in any search. Then it finally got indexed, and our download rate doubled. From 1st of July, it halved again.

This is a screenshot of our stats, here showing the number of new users per day: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1581166/new%20users%20drop%20after%2...

We didn't even start to monetize it, but it has certainly taken much of the fun off of developing it. This must have been a very big hit on some other developers.