Google They are tired of developers cheating on the name and icon of apps to try to fool users, and to avoid this bad practice they are going to take drastic measures.
The company has advanced some of the Google Play policy changes that will take effect throughout this year, for both an app’s metadata and its preview.
The same goes for the next changes in application metadata.
Since developer title, icon and name of an application are the most important discovery elements of the Play Store, Google announces these new rules to keep these elements “recognizable and unique” thanks to these changes:
- Limit the length of application names to 30 characters. ^ Prohibit keywords that involve your ranking, promotion in the icon, in the title and in the name of the developer.
- Eliminate graphical elements that can mislead users in the app icon.
Google shows us some examples of what will no longer be allowed when the new developer policy launches the rest of the year:
- Store performance or rating: Developers will not be able to add text or graphics to the app name, developer name, or app icon with its supposed position in the top downloaded apps ranking.
- Prices and promotional information: They will not be able to add text or graphics to promote the offers. Developers will no longer be allowed to put if an app is for sale, if it is free or if it does not contain ads.
- Reproduce graphic elements that deceive users: They also cannot use any icons or texts that attempt to trick the user into pretending to have an update available, notifications or that encourage their download in the title text.
- Emoticons and special characters: Finally, developers won’t be able to use special emoticons or symbols, or use uppercase text to highlight keywords as a claim. Only the name of the applications can use capital letters, but not the additional text.
New Play Store tab preview rules
The Google Play team also announced a preview of the new policies for the app preview, i.e. for the screenshots, videos and description applications.
The new rules will focus on the following issues:
- Do the preview items accurately represent the app or game?
- Do the preview items provide enough information to help users decide whether or not to install? Are the preview elements free from buzzwords like “free” or “best” and instead focused on providing meaningful information about unique aspects of your app or game?
- Are the preview items correctly located and easy to read?
When Google puts the new policies into effect, it will remove any apps from its store that violate all of these new rules. Google wants all apps to reflect reality and not create their title, icon, screenshots, or promotional videos to trick the user into downloading their apps.
Via | Google
