The readings
| Reading | Source | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Rank | The App Store's own search page, in the order people see, topped up from Apple's search API to 200. | Apple answers about 20 calls a minute; checks are paced and saved for the day. “Not in top 200” means not in what Apple returned that day. |
| H Demand | Apple's search suggestions, walking the letters of each phrase in each country. | Calibrated to Apple's scale. The deep tail cannot be measured, so it shows “?”. Apple slows answers after heavy use; VisualASO stays under that. |
| A Apple Ads | Apple's popularity score, from your own Apple Ads sign-in. | Optional. 5 is Apple's floor and means “not measured”, never “no demand”. |
| S Astro | Import from an Astro export (CSV or JSON). | Its order agrees with Apple; its level reads high, so it is shown 3 lower and labelled. |
| R Ratings proxy | Ratings of the matching apps in the top 25. | The weakest reading. Used only when nothing else measured the phrase. |
| Difficulty | Ratings of the top ten weighted by position, the share of the top ten with the exact phrase in their name, and apps with over a million ratings. | A model, not Apple's number. |
| Google Play rank | Google Play's search page in each country and language. | Google slows down after bursts, so checks are paced. Google publishes no search numbers, so Play shows rank only. |
| Funnel | App Store Connect analytics reports: impressions, page views and downloads by source. | Needs an App Store Connect key and Apple's daily reports turned on once. |
The letter beside each demand number names its source. A floor value is never shown as “no demand” and never makes a phrase Dead.
The verdicts
| Verdict | Rule |
|---|---|
| Win | You rank 1 to 3. |
| Push | You rank 4 to 50, or not at all; demand is at or above your bar (25 by default); difficulty is within your reach. |
| Maybe | Anything between: demand under your bar, or difficulty a little past your reach. |
| Hard | Difficulty far past your reach: the top ten hold far more ratings than you. |
| Swap | The phrase is in your listing, but nobody searches it. Replace it. |
| Dead | Measured, and nobody searches it there. A phrase nothing could measure is never Dead. |
Your reach comes from your own ratings: the more ratings you have, the harder a top ten you can break into. The Map draws it as the dashed line.
Which localization each country reads
An App Store country does not read only its own language. The US store reads English (US) and Spanish (Mexico); most countries read English (UK) as well as their own language. Apple matches a phrase only when it sits whole in one field, so VisualASO plans the keyword field per country and never repeats a word that another field in the same country already holds.
The map VisualASO ships was measured: the English (UK) keyword field was read by 24 of 27 storefronts tested, all the non-English ones except Japan. You can measure the map for your own app with a planted test word in your next version.
Something unclear or out of date? Write to hello@musthaveappscorp.com.