How Google Play search works, what to write in each field, how to test graphics and text, and what the switch to click-through rate means for your reports. Every platform fact links to Google’s own documentation.
Short answer: Google Play ASO (app store optimization for Google Play) is the work of getting an Android app found in Google Play search and browse, then turning more store listing visitors into installs. Google matches searches using your title, description, category and other signals, and generally favors high-quality apps. The levers in 2026 are keyword-led metadata (30-character title, 80-character short description, 4,000-character full description), graphics that show the real app, custom store listings, store listing experiments and promotional content. From July 2026, Play Console judges listings by click-through rate on unique clicks instead of conversion rate, so reset your baselines first.
This guide is for growth and user acquisition leads who own an Android app, and ends with a 90-day plan. If you would rather have a team run it, our ASO agency manages Google Play and the App Store together.
People find apps by searching or by browsing home pages, top charts, categories and recommendations. Google’s App Discovery and Ranking page lists the factors it uses: user relevance, quality of the app experience, editorial value, ads, and the user experience on Google Play. Weighting changes by surface: top charts lean on popularity, search results on relevance to the query.
In search, Google first works out intent. Is the person typing an app’s name, or a category such as “photo editing”? It then uses metadata (title, description, category) and other signals, including synonyms. An exact name search returns that app. A broad search makes many apps relevant, and Google may weigh app quality and how users respond to results.
At Google I/O 2026, Google announced Ask Play, an AI overlay that turns discovery into a conversation and recommends apps, plus app discovery in the Gemini app and Play Shorts, a full-screen vertical video feed. Google has not said how Ask Play chooses apps. Our working view: listings that state plainly who the app is for and what problem it solves give AI answers better material. Treat that as a hypothesis, not a Google rule.
| Field | Limit | What Google says | How to write it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Title (app name) | 30 characters | No emojis, repeated special characters or ALL CAPS unless part of the brand. No ranking, price or promotional text. | Distinctive brand plus the key descriptive term, most important word first. |
| Short description | 80 characters | First text on your detail page. No “Best”, “#1”, “Top”, “New” or “Sale”, no calls to action. Extra keywords will not improve ranking. | One clear benefit in plain words, with your main category term where it reads naturally. |
| Full description | 4,000 characters | Use SEO best practices without keyword spam. Do not repeat the short description. No unattributed testimonials. | Most important text first, then features in short paragraphs. |
Limits apply to full-width and half-width characters alike, which matters for Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Google’s setup guide warns that repetitive or irrelevant keywords can get an app suspended.
Google advises a title that is unique, avoids common terms and reinforces what the app is about. Long titles may be shortened on some devices, so lead with the brand and key term. Avoid subtle misspellings of general words: users tend to correct them.
Write it for a person scanning results. Google’s asset guidelines say unnecessary keywords here will not affect ranking. Name the core job the app does and what makes it different, and leave out offers that go stale.
This is where most keyword coverage lives. Google’s store listing best practices show a comma-separated list of racing terms as repetition to avoid. Instead:
Google machine-translates listings you have not translated, but says professional translation of the description can lead to better search results. Custom store listings are not translated automatically. At I/O 2026, Google announced that you can upload a CSV or Google Sheet and have Gemini models pre-populate listings across languages for your review. Treat that as a draft: a literal translation of English keywords is rarely what local users type. Our NeuroNation Korea case study shows the principle. Localized Korean metadata lifted search downloads by 93%. That was an App Store project, but the method carries over to Google Play’s title and descriptions.
Google’s asset guidelines also steer you away from words like “Best” or “Million Downloads” and from calls to action such as “Download now”. For games, see our guide to ASO for mobile games.
You can create up to 50 custom store listings, each with its own name, icon, descriptions and graphics. Target them by country (one listing per country), search keywords, pre-registration, churned or lapsed users, buyer state, Google Ads traffic, custom audiences or a unique URL.
Keyword targeting is the most direct ASO lever Google Play offers. Pick keywords already bringing you traffic or search for new ones; each is a bundle of spelling variants and translations you can deselect. Gemini can draft the descriptions. Google also announced at I/O 2026 that clicking a keyword recommendation on the Grow overview page has Gemini build a tailored custom listing, ready to deploy in one click.
For App campaigns, target “Ads traffic” and pick the custom listing as a landing page in Google Ads. Google notes these listings currently show on AdMob only, not on Google Play search ads. Our Google Ads agency team aligns ad creative with the listing people land on.
Google Play’s native store listing experiments follow these rules:
If a variant wins, Google may recommend applying it. “More data needed” means come back later. A “Draw” means the difference was smaller than your minimum detectable effect. Test one asset at a time, as Google recommends, and write the hypothesis first. If the estimate runs to months, test a bolder change or a bigger language instead of stopping early. Our guide to ASO A/B testing covers test design.
Promotional content, formerly LiveOps, publishes offers, time-limited events and major updates. It is open to all games and to apps that meet Google’s premium growth tools criteria. Events show on your listing and may appear on the home page, in search results and, for games in some countries, on the Events tab.
Google says apps that submit promotional content and request featuring can see over twice as many explore acquisitions during a featuring window, based on events with a statistically significant uplift from November 2023 to January 2024. Plan a quarterly calendar that uses every request.
The rating users see is weighted toward recent ratings, so fixes show up in your score.
From July 2026, Google Play’s store listing reports count unique users who click Install, Open or Pre-register. Click-through rate (CTR), the share of visitors who click, replaces the legacy conversion rate. Google’s July 2026 update also changed visitor counting, lowering visits on average from July 10, 2026, and now credits indirect clicks. Acquisitions still appear in Grow overview and Statistics.
One detail catches teams out. In these reports, “Google Play search” means searches for your app’s name or brand. Generic searches such as “budget planner” count as “Google Play explore”, so non-brand ASO gains show up there.
| Area | Google Play | App Store |
|---|---|---|
| Title | 30 characters | 30 characters |
| Second text line | Short description, 80 characters | Subtitle, 30 characters |
| Keywords | No keyword field; title, description and category are metadata | 100-character keyword field |
| Long description | 4,000 characters, used for search matching | Not among Apple’s listed search text fields |
| Screenshots and video | Up to 8 per device type; 1 YouTube video | Up to 10; up to 3 app previews per language |
| Native A/B tests | Up to 2 variants, text and graphics, auto-stop at 6 months | Up to 3 treatments, graphics only, up to 90 days |
| Custom pages | Up to 50, targetable by keyword, country, audience or ads | Up to 70 Custom Product Pages, with keywords |
| Events | Promotional content, up to 4 weeks | In-App Events, up to 31 days |
| Headline metric | CTR on unique clicks | Conversion rate, impressions to downloads |
| Rating prompts | In-app review API with a quota | Up to 3 prompts in 365 days |
The upshot: on Google Play your description does keyword work, so give it the same care as your title.
| Days | Focus | Actions |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 30 | Baseline and fix | Set the CTR baseline. Run your listing through our ASO Checker, which reads Google Play listings too. Build a keyword map from search terms. Rewrite title and descriptions. Bring graphics up to spec, set tags and start replying to reviews. |
| 31 to 60 | Test and target | Test the icon or first screenshot. Test descriptions in your top language. Build two or three keyword custom store listings. Localize for your next market. |
| 61 to 90 | Scale | Apply winners and queue new tests. Submit a promotional content event with a featuring request. Match an ads-targeted listing to your App campaigns. Review CTR, acquisitions by traffic source and rating against the baseline. |
Bring in a specialist when the listing falls between teams: user acquisition owns ads, product owns releases, design owns screenshots, and nobody owns the store page. Signs include metadata unchanged since launch, experiments that never conclude and no plan for the new CTR metric.
Admiral Media’s managed ASO covers Google Play and the App Store together: keyword research, metadata, creative review, native tests where traffic allows and a monthly report, led by a senior ASO specialist. It costs from €2,900 per month for one app on both stores in one market, plus €1,500 per month per additional market. See our ASO agency pricing for the full breakdown.
Google Play ASO (app store optimization) is the work of improving how an Android app ranks in Google Play search and browse, and how many store listing visitors click to install it. It covers the title, short description and full description, graphics, custom store listings, store listing experiments, promotional content and ratings.
No. The store listing has three text fields: a 30-character title, an 80-character short description and a 4,000-character full description. Google uses the title, description and category as metadata to match searches, so work keywords into readable copy. Repetitive or irrelevant keywords can get an app suspended.
Up to two variants against your current listing. Per app, you can run one default graphics experiment or up to five localized experiments at the same time, and experiments stop automatically after six months.
From July 2026, store listing reports use click-through rate: the share of store listing visitors who click Install, Open or Pre-register, counted as unique users. Visitor counting also changed, so build a new baseline instead of comparing CTR with your old conversion rate.
Google does not publish a timeline. Judge metadata changes over at least 28 days against a clean baseline, split by traffic source and country. Store listing experiments show their own time estimate when you set them up.
Admiral Media’s managed ASO costs from €2,900 per month for one app on Google Play and the App Store in one market, plus €1,500 per month for each additional market. The full breakdown is on our ASO agency pricing page.
Talk to a senior ASO specialist about your Google Play keywords, custom store listings and experiments, managed alongside your App Store listing. Managed ASO starts from €2,900 per month.
