App Store keywords: how ranking works

Apple’s search page names the text it matches: your title, subtitle, keywords and primary category. Elsewhere Apple adds your secondary category and developer name. Promotional text is the one field Apple says does not count.

Apple does not publish weights. Many ASO guides say the name counts most, then the subtitle, then the keyword field. That is a common belief, not something Apple has said.

The rules, all from Apple’s search page and App Store Connect help:

1. Separate terms with commas and no spaces.
2. Spaces inside a phrase are fine, like Real Estate.
3. Each keyword must be longer than two characters.
4. Do not repeat words from your name, subtitle or category.
5. Skip plurals of words you already have. Apple treats them as duplicates.
6. Skip broad words like “app” or “game”, and filler like “the” or “to”.
7. Skip # and @ unless they are part of your brand.
8. Your developer name is already searchable, so leave it out.

A note for non-Latin scripts. Apple’s search page says 100 characters, but App Store Connect says 100 bytes. A Japanese word like ルーティン is 5 characters and 15 bytes, so you fit far fewer words than in English.

A made-up habit app called Tally: Habit Tracker, with the subtitle Build streaks that last. Here is a keyword field that wastes most of its space:

• “habit tracker” is already in the name.
• “habits” is a plural of a word in the name.
• “streaks” is already in the subtitle.
• “the best habit app” is filler, a repeat and the word “app”.

The same space, used for words the name and subtitle do not cover:

Ten new terms instead of four. Whether any of them is worth having depends on what people search, which is the next question.

Apple shows no search numbers for the keyword field. Two free places give a hint:

• The App Store search box. Type the first letters of a word and read the suggestions it offers.
• Apple Ads (it was called Apple Search Ads until April 2025). Its keyword recommendations show search popularity from 1 to 5, with 5 the most popular. You need an Apple Ads account to see them.

Apple’s own advice is to weigh ranking well for less common terms against ranking lower for popular ones. For a new app with few ratings, the less common terms are usually the ones you can win.

On 12 November 2026 we looked at the names of the 200 newest apps listed on Indie Apps, all added between 4 and 12 November. The name is the one searched field everyone sees, so it is where developers put the most thought.

• 66% pair a brand with plain words after a colon or dash, like Parendi: Expense Tracker or Graceup - Gratitude Journal.
• 43% use 27 to 30 of the 30 characters, like AppStop: Screen Time & Focus.
• 20% use 12 characters or fewer, usually the brand alone.
• The median name is 25 characters long.

A brand-only name is not wrong, but it leaves the most visible searched field to say nothing about what the app does. Two cautions: the words should describe the app, and Apple’s guideline 2.3.7 rejects names and keywords packed with trademarks, popular app names or other words added only to game search.

Each localization in App Store Connect has its own keyword field, and it does not copy from your main language. Apple’s table of storefronts lists the languages each country’s App Store supports. For the United States, besides English (US): Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), French, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Mexico) and Vietnamese.

Many ASO guides say that filling, say, the Spanish (Mexico) keyword field adds another 100 characters to US search. Apple does not say that anywhere we could find, and we have not tested it. Treat it as a claim, and only write keywords in a language you would also support.

Since 29 October 2025, Apple lets you assign keywords to custom product pages. A page with keywords can appear in search results for those words instead of your default page, and you can publish up to 70 of them.

So one app can show different screenshots to people searching “budget planner” and people searching “expense tracker”. Apple asks that each keyword match the page’s purpose and belong to only one page. Most keyword guides still do not mention this.

In App Store Connect the keyword field sits with your app version, so you edit it while a version is editable. In practice that means with your next update. Promotional text is the exception: Apple says you can change it without a new submission, but it does not affect search.

Change a few words at a time and give each set a few weeks, so you can tell what moved your rank. For the rest of your page, see how to market your iOS app for free and the iOS app launch checklist.

Apple does not publish how it weighs each field, and nobody outside Apple knows the formula. The rules on this page are Apple’s. The numbers on names are ours, from one week of new listings. Anything else here that Apple has not said is marked as a claim.

A listing on Indie Apps does not change your App Store rank. It gives your app a page on the web, where Google and AI search can find it.