App Store Begins Indexing App Subtitles

Original source: Osman F. Kucukerdem

It's official: Apple is now allowing developers to use the shorter 30 character app name in conjunction with the 30 character subtitle in new app versions; Apple has also begun indexing keywords found in the subtitle.

As Moritz Daan of Phiture identified in the ASO Stack Slack group, be careful when using the new title, though, as there some ranking oddities have emerged for apps using both the old 50 character title and the subtitle.

Either use only the old 50 character title, or BOTH the 30 character title AND the subtitle. For apps with a subtitle applied, the 31st-50th character title keywords have been noted by the industry to lose rank, reminiscent of what happened during Apple's migration from 255 character titles to 50 character titles nearly one year ago.

Research thus far into the relative ranking strength of subtitle-located keywords places them:

• At the same ranking strength as the app title (Incipia internal research)
• At a ranking strength higher than keywords, but weaker than the app title (anecdotal research from other ASOs)

The Bottom Line: submit your new app name with subtitle to future-proof your app against losing rank for valuable keyword titles, but be sure to submit both a 30 character title and subtitle, or only a 50 character title. Additionally, the promo text and subtitle are both optional for now, and descriptions are still mutable between submitting new versions.

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Incipia is a mobile app development and marketing agency that builds and markets apps for companies, with a specialty in high-quality, stable app development and keyword-based marketing strategy, such as App Store Optimization and Apple Search Ads. For post topics, feedback or business inquiries please contact us, or send an inquiry to hello@incipia.co.