is announcing several new steps to ensure that app discovery ratings can’t be manipulated.

An update to the Android Developers Blog says has found some developers trying to game their app placement through fraudulent installs, fake reviews, other “incentivized ratings.” 

The company is putting new detection filtering systems in place to try put a stop to this. Search quality analyst Kazushi Nagayama product manager Ahn penned a joint blog post that warned those caught could be kicked out of the store.

If an install is conducted with the intention to manipulate an app’s placement on ay, our systems will detect filter it. Furthermore, developers who continue to exhibit such behaviors could have their apps taken down from ay.

There shouldn’t be anything noticeably different on your end. App discovery remains a challenge, we’ll have to see if this smoothes some things out. Developers are also urged to ensure that any third-party company promoting their app also abides by ’s guidelines.

y this matters: Finding a good new app remains a challenge, even for a search-focused company like . It only gets worse if there are numerous developers who aren’t playing by the rules. So such security crackdowns are necessary from time to time in order to keep everyone honest.