Apple's search popularity score in 2026: what 5 means, the 2025 drop and the new API

Apple Ads publishes a search popularity score for App Store search terms. Adapty's guide to the Apple Ads Platform API says: Apple "scores the popularity of each keyword from 1 to 100 based on how often people search for it in the App Store." Most tools show the low end as 5, which means the term sits below what Apple reports. The scale moved twice since September 2025, so every reading needs its date.

What the popularity score is

The score ranks demand for a search term inside the App Store, not clicks or installs. Apple works it out from how often people search the term, and reports it on a 1-to-100 scale through Apple Ads. Tools that show popularity read it from Apple Ads. The numbers are Apple's; the tools fetch and store them.

Apple exposes the score in two shapes. The first is a popularity chart — a ranked list of terms, which Adapty describes as "organized by category and country". The second is phrase suggestion: Adapty reports that a "SEARCH mode" returns popularity for a specific phrase you ask about, rather than a whole chart.

Both need an Apple Ads account. Creating one does not mean you have to run campaigns or spend anything, which is set out on our Apple Ads setup page. VisualASO reads that account read-only and never creates or changes campaigns.

What a 5 means

A 5 is a floor, not a zero. It says the term sits below what Apple reports, and nothing more. VisualASO shows a 5 as "not measured" rather than as no demand, because the two are different, and the difference decides whether a term stays in your subtitle or keyword field.

This matters more after 2025 than before it. aso.dev found that most keywords which had read 20 to 60 dropped to 5 — so a 5 can cover a term that Apple itself scored in the middle of the scale a year earlier.

When a term you care about reads 5, look at a second instrument before dropping it. Apple's own search suggestions sort phrases roughly, often enough to separate some demand from none measured; our method and its error are written up in our study of App Store search suggestions as a demand measure. The ratings counts of the apps already ranking for the term are another check: many well-reviewed apps ranking for a term suggest people search it.

How far Apple's charts reach

We read Apple's popularity charts through our own Apple Ads account: 12,519 term-country cells over 21 weeks, five genres, August to October 2026. A chart holds up to 500 terms per country and genre per week. Big markets fill all 500. Smaller ones publish far fewer and stop at a floor in the forties or fifties, so the charts cover only the head of demand.

In the United States, every genre we pulled ran the full 500 terms. Elsewhere the lists are short.

Chart	Terms published
United States, every genre we pulled	500 (the cap)
United Kingdom, Sports	192
Sweden, Sports	29 (one week)

Charted values across the whole set ran from 41 to 94. Where a chart holds fewer than 500 terms, it does not taper toward 5 — it stops.

Country	Lowest charted value we saw
United Kingdom	about 44
Germany	about 45
Spain	about 46
Sweden	about 54

So the charts answer one question well — which terms are the biggest in this country and category this week — and cannot answer a common question: how a long, specific phrase compares to another long, specific phrase. For that you need phrase lookups, a second instrument, or both. How we count and what each of our numbers covers is on our numbers page.

The 2025 drop and the October 2026 recovery

Popularity readings fell sharply in autumn 2025 and came back in October 2026. aso.dev reported that from 29 September 2025 the number of US keywords scoring above 5 dropped by 77.4%, and that from 23 October 2026 the count rose again, past its old level. Any comparison across those dates compares two different scales.

aso.dev's report on the drop checked that the data came correctly from Apple and concluded that Apple had likely changed its scoring. aso.dev also reported that Apple introduced a "Monthly Search Term Rank Report" that excludes terms with popularity below 35

Reading	Date	US keywords with popularity above 5
Before the drop	29 September 2025	165,875
After the drop	3 October 2025	39,254
After the recovery	28 October 2026	204,476

aso.dev's report on the recovery, published 28 October 2026 and updated the next day, puts the 28 October count at 114.9% of the 29 September 2025 level in its own export, which it gives as 178,001. The two baselines in the table come from the two posts; treat them as separate exports rather than one series.

The recovery is not uniform. aso.dev reports that the 6–9 and 10–19 bands stayed much smaller than before, so the spread of scores has not returned to its old shape. aso.dev also warns that the count of scored keywords is not a measure of search traffic, and that every country outside the United States needs its own history before you can say anything about it.

The new Apple Ads Platform API

Apple released the Apple Ads Platform API on 14 August 2026, according to Adapty, which also reports that the old Campaign Management API v5 "shuts down on January 26, 2027". If a tool you pay for still reads the old API, it has until that date. The new API carries both the popularity report and phrase-level popularity.

Four details cost us time when we built against it, and they are worth knowing before you write your first query:

• Weekly data uses Sunday-to-Saturday weeks, and a new week lands on Mondays.
• A time range is required in the query. Leave it out and the request can hang with no error at all.
• History runs 65 weeks for weekly data. Anything older is gone, so if you want a long series you have to store it yourself.
• The popularity report is per category and country, which means a term outside the top 500 in that pairing is simply absent, not low.

How to read popularity this year

Compare within one country and one week, and nothing else. aso.dev calls the score a relative measure, so it means most next to other scores from the same country and week. Across countries, across genres, or across the September 2025 and October 2026 changes, the same number is not the same thing. Date every reading you write down.

Tools that read Apple's popularity do not all report the same figure. We compared Astro, a paid Mac ASO app, against Apple's charts on 459 fresh cells in October 2026: Astro read a median 3 points above the charts, with rank correlation 0.90. In August 2026 the same comparison showed a gap of 8. The ordering agrees; the absolute numbers drift, so never mix figures from two tools in one list.

Treat 5 as unknown rather than as empty, and resolve it with a second instrument before you cut a term. Search suggestions can sort phrases but cannot size the head of demand, which is the one job the charts do well — the two instruments cover each other's blind spots.

If you do not have an Apple Ads account yet, our free keyword popularity estimate works from search suggestions and prints its own error alongside the number, so you can see how much weight it carries.

Questions

What does a popularity score of 5 mean?

It means Apple does not report a value for that term, not that nobody searches it. After Apple's 2025 scoring change, aso.dev found that most keywords previously reading 20 to 60 showed 5. Check the term with a second instrument before dropping it.

Do I need to run ads to see popularity scores?

No. You need an Apple Ads account, but creating one does not require running campaigns or spending money. VisualASO reads the account read-only and never creates or changes campaigns.

Can I compare popularity scores between countries?

No. Apple's charts hold up to 500 terms per country and genre, and small markets stop well short of that — we saw floors of about 44 in the United Kingdom and about 54 in Sweden. A 50 in Sweden and a 50 in the United States sit at different places in their own charts.

Why did my keyword's popularity jump in October 2026?

aso.dev reported that the count of US keywords scoring above 5 rose quickly from 23 October 2026, reaching 204,476 by 28 October. Terms that had read 5 since autumn 2025 started showing numbers again, so the jump is a change in what Apple publishes, not proof that people started searching more.

What is the highest popularity score Apple shows?

The scale runs to 100. Across 12,519 term-country cells we read between August and October 2026, the highest charted value was 94 and the lowest was 41.