Google today announced that it has enhanced the search and discovery algorithms in the Google Play Store to rank quality apps higher than poorly made apps. The new algorithm will take into account an app’s performance, stability, crashes, battery drain etc. and rank them accordingly. 

So, despite an app being popular among consumers and having millions of downloads will rank lower than its competing app which does not suffer from performance or stability issues. Google says that since the algorithm change it has noticed a positive impact on user engagement, with people installing more higher quality apps and uninstalling them less.

Google highlights in its announcement that developers can make use of Android vitals to find issues reported by users. They can also use follow ratings and reviews on the Play Store and engage with consumers to find out the issues they are facing with the app on their devices.

This algorithm change from Google is a step in the right direction. It is always a good idea to filter high-quality apps from low-quality ones because when users see apps frequently crashing or draining their phone’s battery, they end up blaming the platform for it. With this move, Google is also forcing developers to work on the stability and performance of their apps if they want it to rank higher in search results. Many developers did not focus much on these key metrics since stability and performance is not something that one can sell to consumers purely from their app listing.