BlackBerry® World™ Development

[binkat]

Yesterday and today have been very weak in sales for me. It all started yesterday (9 Apr) and continues. Today so far I got 1/15 of what I normally gross by this time. Mothing seems changed on my side: all up fors sale, no rating changes etc. Is it just me, am I dreaming? Is anyone else seeing that? Is that another over-the-weekend surprise server "change"?

[cwong15]

Yes, I'm seeing something not quite right too. One of my apps is in the featured apps carousel this week, so the dropoff is quite noticeable.

Update: I don't think I am seeing the same issue as you. My app on the carousel did have a sales drop today compared to yesterday, but it's not as drastic as you described for your case. Also, one of my other apps' sales is "normal". Whatever your problem is, I don't think it is systemic. You could just be having a bad couple of days. After all, this is the weekend, which can affect buyer patterns.  I hope you will keep us updated with your experience, and good luck.

[BBetter]

No, its not just you. 1/15th sounds about right (I've been scratching my head just the same). Being featured used to be a gold mine ( i stress "used" to).  The market has changed dramatically in the last year. Your not dreaming.

[silver20]

My graphs are all about the same as they have been for a long time... lots of fluctuations around a slight downward slope.

[smiley]

Once copycats release their apps you will see a down turn.

[QuiteSimple]

Check if there is a competitor's app being featured. Or new free competitor's app. Or bad reviews for your app.

[smiley]

this morning a copycat dev released 2 apps that are almost 100% copy of my apps with 100% same features.

i've posted a new thread about this. 

Makes me want to quit dev on the BB.

[sporadicsoftware]

Mine our way down too. Went to App World to see about bad reviews or new competition. Instead I found that searching using the main keyword for my app does not return any results. I contacted RIM about the issue. 

Nic

[silver20]

Search optimization is critical !

I feel like a complete **bleep** after realizing how much money I lost for years just because I had not optimized for searches.  Just changed a few titles and sales tripled.

You can't just do simple titles like, "Print your own monopoly money", you have to put optimizations and catch phrases in the title itself, like "The Money App - Game Money ! Print your own monopoly money ! Easy Money !", and make sure there are no dashes or punctuation directly against any of the search terms.  Also, it will not find search terms if they are concatenated, i.e. if you have AppWorld in the title, a search on "World" will not find it.  You have to have both AppWorld and App World in the title to optimize for searching.

Next, you find every excuse to increase the number of occurrences of search terms in the description without making it look ridiculous.  But the title is more important.  If your competitor has Money in her title twice and 15 times in her description, and you have Money in your title 3 times and only once in the description, you will win in the search results.  (And then she may sue you for hindering her career.)

[brew1]

Same here, previously any word in the description would come up on a search. Now when searching a word you only get a result if that word is in the title or dev name, period. I just upgraded to 2.0.1.358, I don't know if that is the cause. Try it, search any word, you will only get results of matching titles and/or dev name but nothing else. For example search for "skate fighter" ... you will be the only one who finds it right now I hope they fix this soon!!! Previously I could search skater, skateboard, or any word I had in the description.