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.

As of May 27 @ 4 AM PST we believe we found a solution to this issue please see this updated post for details.

This is a video demonstrating the bug described in a previous post An Open Letter to Apple

As of May 27 @ 4 AM PST we believe we found a solution to this issue please see this updated post for details.

I hope for this email to reach the attention of someone who can take action to resolve the issue described.

This bug within the App Store affects our business directly, and if it goes unresolved for much longer it will force myself and the developers that work for me out of business as developers for the Apple iPhone.

Please respond to this email to let me know that it has been read and that steps are being taken to resolve the issue. Details follow.

Our app (eMees Avatar Creator) contains a text description that was entered in iTunes Connect since its launch in January 2009.

Since the initial 1.0 version was available it has ranked well within the top 100 paid apps of every category we have entered it into.

Unfortunately, however, since our most recent update (version 1.3) of the app our entire description has become invisible to the native search functionality built into iTunes and the App Store on the iPhone/iPod Touch.

We have tested this very thoroughly and we cannot find a single keyword or phrase that will reveal our app within search results except for the 3 words that appear within our app title “eMees” “Avatar” or “Creator”. These are the ONLY words that will yield results in search as they are the only words within our app title.

The search mechanism however usually indexes and provides results for the text description (not just the title) of other apps. For a time, before April 27th this case was also true for our app.

Of course only Apple knows about the internal workings search mechanism and results usually vary with different search implementations. However from testing we have found with certainty that our app description is completely excluded from search. This is unusual and it is of course bad for our business as we are no longer visible to users that utilize the search function.

As a test we recently inserted a unique keyword string into our app description “Gnirtstset” (without quotes on the description). Presumably if content is being indexed on our description at all there should be a strong chance of us being listed when a user searches for this string.

We have also asked two other developers whom we know personally to insert this keyword into their description in order to have a controlled test.

Both of these developers apps (”Dapple” and “Squished”) appear when this keyword (”Gnirtstset”) is used. However our app, which also includes this keyword does not appear.

The results of this keyword search can be invoked in iTunes by following this URL:
http://tinyurl.com/Gnirtstset

We inserted this special keyword into our description 72 hours prior to asking these developers to do the same for the test.

At this time the result is still the same. Both of the other developers apps appear while ours does not. As mentioned before, we cannot find a single keyword or phrase (except those words in our title) that will reveal via search.

This is highly unusual, as we are very familiar with our “searchability” and since before April 27th most if not all of our description was “searchable”.

I believe this bug has already affected other developers who have documented it in your forums here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1706838&tstart=105

This issue seems to have existed since September 2008 and has still not been resolved.

2 users reported that they did not receive the “App ready for sale” email for their application prior to this issue affecting them. We are all of course used to receiving this email once our app is ready. I can tell you personally that I also did not receive this email for the version 1.3 update. So the symptom and problem appear to be exactly the same as the developers reporting the issue in the forum.

I have attached to this email two screen captures of the test search with results on both the iPhone and within iTunes on OS X.

Further, I have also documented the issue on video and posted it to YouTube which you will find here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp5ueTySqVI&fmt=18. This video very plainly describes the issue and shows that it is a bug.

This is not the result of search being selective of keywords, it is in fact excluding our description completely from your search index.

I would like to see this issue resolved specifically for our application. We are losing rank on our chosen category on the App Store very quickly and I believe if it is not resolved very soon it will put us out of business.

Please RSVP to this email to let me know that you are aware of this issue and are taking steps to correct it and how long I should expect to wait until the issue is resolved for our application.

Thank You.

Jordan Wan
Software Development Manager
Smallmedium