Store Listing and Promotion

The promotion and visibility of your app dramatically affects store quality. Avoid spammy store listings, low quality promotion, and efforts to artificially boost app visibility on Google Play.

App Promotion Metadata User Ratings, Reviews, and Installs Content Ratings

App Promotion

We don’t allow apps that directly or indirectly engage in or benefit from promotion practices that are deceptive or harmful to users or the developer ecosystem. This includes apps that engage in the following behavior:

Using deceptive ads on websites, apps, or other properties, including notifications that are similar to system notifications and alerts.
Promotion or installation tactics that redirect users to Google Play or download apps without informed user action.
Unsolicited promotion via SMS services.

It is your responsibility to ensure that any ad networks or affiliates associated with your app comply with these policies and do not employ any prohibited promotion practices.

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Metadata

We don't allow apps with misleading, irrelevant, excessive, or inappropriate metadata, including but not limited to the app's description, developer name, title, icon, screenshots, and promotional images. We also don't allow user testimonials in the app's description.

Here are some examples of common violations:

① User testimonials
② Excessive details
③ ④ Misleading references to other apps or products
⑤ Repetitive, excessive, or irrelevant keywords

Here are some examples of inappropriate text, images, or videos within your listing:

Imagery or videos with sexually suggestive content. Avoid suggestive imagery containing breasts, buttocks, genitalia, or other fetishized anatomy or content, whether illustrated or real.
Language inappropriate for a general audience. Avoid profane and vulgar language in your app listing. If it is a critical element of your app, you must censor its presentation within the store listing.
Graphic violence prominently depicted in app icons, promotional images, or videos.
Depictions of the illicit usage of drugs. Even EDSA (Educational, Documentary, Scientific, or Artistic) content must be suitable for all audiences within the store listing.

Here are a few best practices:

Highlight what's great about your app. Share interesting and exciting facts about your app to help users understand what makes your app special.
Make sure that your app’s title and description accurately describe your app’s functionality.
Avoid using repetitive or unrelated keywords or references.
Keep your app’s description succinct and straightforward. Shorter descriptions tend to result in a better user experience, especially on devices with smaller displays. Excessive length, detail, or repetition can result in a violation of this policy.
Remember that your listing should be suitable for a general audience. Avoid using inappropriate text, images or videos in your listing.

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App Promotion

User Ratings, Reviews, and Installs

Developers must not attempt to manipulate the placement of any apps in Google Play. This includes, but is not limited to, inflating product ratings, reviews, or install counts by illegitimate means, such as fraudulent or incentivized installs, reviews and ratings.

Here are some examples of common violations:

Asking users to rate your app while offering an incentive:
① This notification offers users a discount in exchange for a high rating.

Repeatedly submitting ratings to influence the app’s placement on Google Play.
Submitting or encouraging users to submit reviews containing inappropriate content, including affiliates, coupons, game codes, email addresses, or links to websites or other apps:

② This review encourages users to promote the RescueRover app by making a coupon offer.

Ratings and reviews are benchmarks of app quality. Users depend on them to be authentic and relevant. Here are some best practices when responding to user reviews:

Keep your reply focused on the issues raised in the user's comments and don’t ask for a higher rating.
Include references to helpful resources such as a support address or FAQ page.

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Metadata

Content Ratings

Our content rating system includes official ratings from the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) and is designed to help developers communicate locally relevant content ratings to users.

How content ratings are used

Content ratings are used to inform consumers, especially parents, of potentially objectionable content that exists within an app. They also help filter or block your content in certain territories or to specific users where required by law, and determine your app’s eligibility for special developer programs.

How content ratings are assigned

To receive a content rating, you must fill out a rating questionnaire on the Play Console that asks about the nature of your apps’ content. Your app will be assigned a content rating from multiple rating authorities based on your questionnaire responses. Misrepresentation of your app’s content may result in removal or suspension, so it is important to provide accurate responses to the content rating questionnaire.

To prevent your app from being listed as “Unrated”, you must complete the content rating questionnaire for each new app submitted to the Play Console, as well as for all existing apps that are active on Google Play. Apps without a content rating will be removed from the Play Store.

If you make changes to your app content or features that affect the responses to the rating questionnaire, you must submit a new content rating questionnaire in the Play Console.

Visit the Help Center to find more information on the different rating authorities and how to complete the content rating questionnaire.

Rating appeals

If you do not agree with the rating assigned to your app, you can appeal directly to the IARC rating authority using the link provided in your certificate email.

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