The Daily Grind

A Development Blog by SMALLMEDIUM

In a recent video post to YouTube I documented a bug in the iTunes App Store that prevented our app (eMees Avatar Creator) from appearing within search results for very relevant keywords.

These were keywords that we consistently appeared in results for (and ranked well) prior to April 27th when our latest update (version 1.3) was released.

I even did tests with the cooperation of other developers where we inserted a completely unique string into our descriptions to see the result. As expected their apps did appear when this unique keyword was searched but our own app continued to be absent.

I also sent an email to iTunes Connect and Apple Developer Support documenting the issue and requesting a resolution.

At this time I am happy to tell you that although we never did receive a response from Apple (yet?) on the issue we did find something that appears to have resolved it.

Because I know other developers are affected by this bug, which is apparent from the Retweets on our post, I thought it would be a good idea to write a post of our findings.

For those who are affected by this bug here are the steps that worked for us:

1. Copy your current app description to a text file and save it on your computer, if your description includes Emoji be sure to save in a Unicode compatible format.
2. Update your app description in iTunes Connect changing it significantly; I think a 90% change is a good target (this is only temporary). Include a unique keyword that no one else uses in their description; one that produces no search results.
3. Wait for the change in Step 2 to take affect so that it is published and shown on the App Store.
4. Search for the keyword you inserted in Step 2. In our case it finally indexed our description and we were searchable at this point. We think this is because the indexing mechanism is invoked when there is a change beyond a set (but unknown) threshold.
5. If Step 4 was successful return to iTunes Connect and paste in your original description that you saved in Step 1.
6. Wait for your new description to be published and visible in the App Store. Test your search keywords – results will of course vary depending on the keyword, but we believe this does fix the bug (see below).

A few notes on this fix:

• It is very clear to us that this was in fact a bug and not an “SEO” type issue. We tested thoroughly and could not find a single keyword or phrase that would make our app appear in results except for those keywords in our title. Previous to the version 1.3 update we would appear under many keywords. After 1.3 was deployed we were completely invisible to search except for those words in our app title.
• We don’t know what trigged the bug in the first place but we do know that it appears to have happened only after our most recent app update (version 1.3 on April 27th).
• We believe the solution works because the search indexing mechanism runs on a cycle and it may be looking for a change in description that meets a certain threshold.This is only speculative but it would explain why we weren’t re-indexed and made searchable after we only changed the description to include the unique keyword only (“Gnirtstset”). It was only re-indexed after we did another description update that was much more significant.
• Emoji is not the problem, although our description contains these special characters they were in our description before it ever took affect.We are also aware of other developers who were affected by the bug that did not use Emoji at all. Similarly, we have found that other developers who also use Emoji in their description are not affected by this bug.Interestingly you can even search for our app (with an Emoji keyboard enabled iPhone/iPod) using one of the Emoji characters used in our description. This indicates that Emoji Unicode symbols are likely being treated like any other text.
• We did not receive a “Your application status is Ready for Sale” email when our version 1.3 update was deployed to users.It should be noted however that other developers also have also not received this email but were unaffected by this bug.Although two other users in this Apple Discussions thread did comment that they also did not receive this email.So it seems that this issue may not be the cause itself. But it may still sometimes be a symptom of this bug. If your update has recently become available and you did not receive this email from Apple I recommend that you test your description with a unique keyword (near the top) to see if it can be searched.
• In order to make sure that the final version of our description posted (the original that I saved in Step 1) was in fact being indexed correctly, and I am not simply seeing a result of the previous indexing from Step 2, I inserted a new unique keyword.
  The keyword is “Drowtset” (test word backwards and made into a single word). This word is also now searchable.
  Finding our app with this keyword confirms that the search index includes the keywords from our most recent description update which is the one we want, and it is exactly the same as the original that was not being indexed.
  Note: We will be removing these special keywords in a new description update later today.

At the time of this post we now appear to be searchable again by all of the keywords that worked before the April 27th update.

I can’t guarantee that the fix we used will work for you but if you have been experiencing this bug you may want to try it.

Please also come back to comment on this post to share your experience with everyone, whether it works or even if it doesn’t. Without word from Apple on this issue developers will benefit from hearing others experiences.

White House photo by Shealah Craighead

I’d like to begin my first post by letting you know a little bit about my background and my intentions with The Daily Grind development blog…

My name is Jordan Wan and I am the sole proprietor and project manager at SMALLMEDIUM (www.smallmedium.com).

I have worked most recently as the web development manager of a small but very capable team for View2gether, Inc. My primary background and passion is for web and graphic design, typography, front-end programming and project management. I have been providing my skills as a freelance contractor to my clients for over 10 years.

I may write posts from time-to-time that are related to my wider business (freelancing, web design et al.) but my intention here is to focus the content of this blog narrowly upon the iPhone development process to and provide insights into my strategies, successes and mistakes with the iPhone business experience.

The Daily Grind is also going to be a way for SMALLMEDIUM to communicate directly to the iPhone community at large and to users of our apps; the first of which I am proud to say will be eMees Avatar Creator. Having said this, I want to let you know that this blog is not intended to serve as a shameless self promotion, SEO or for any other purpose but to communicate directly to users with useful information and news and to share my insights to with others who are interested in iPhone development and the business aspects of it.

For the record I’d also like to tell you now that the all-caps and half bold style of writing my company name is not meant to imply that I’m shouting it out. It is just the way that I’ve decided that the Smallmedium brand will be formally written so that it replicates my wordmark. I will however use this style of typing sparingly for all future blog posts where I will write it less formally as “Smallmedium”.

Finally, thank you for coming to read and be a part of my blog. I welcome your comments to posts and your feedback is always appreciated. If you have any questions or ideas for new blog posts please feel free to email me at blog@smallmedium.com.

Thank You,
Jordan.