Manipulating App Store Rankings Uncovered In Viral Photo


App Store

A recent photo is showing the sneaky side of app store rankings. The picture depicts what Apple calls a Chinese App Store ranking manipulation farm.  A woman is shown sitting in front of a specially made desk covered in iPhones. Her job is to boost app store rankings by download, install and uninstall apps over and over again.

App Store Ranking

This is considered a sneaky business practice, but that doesn’t seem to stop businesses like this from operating.

Tech In Asia has posted a screenshot of the prices some of these companies charge to boost app rankings.

App Store

“To get into the top 10 free apps costs RMB 70,000 (US$11,200), and keeping it there will run you another RMB 405,000 (US$65,000) per week. The third column is the monthly fare, and negotiations take place over popular messaging service QQ.”

Apple discourages these types of practices, but a quick Internet search for “app store ranking manipulation” will uncover hundreds of companies.

The origins of this viral photo are unknown. The woman, company and location are unknown.

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