People enjoy using apps and games which meet their performance and quality expectations. Excessive battery usage, slow render times, and crashes, on the other hand, can be a source of frustration. In fact, in an internal analysis of app reviews on Google Play, we noticed that half of 1-star reviews mentioned app stability. Developers who focus on app quality can see improvements in their rating, and ultimately their retention and monetization.

As part of our continued effort to deliver the best possible Google Play experience, we recently enhanced our search and discovery algorithms to reflect app quality. This results in higher quality apps being surfaced in the Play Store more than similar apps of lower quality (eg: apps that exhibit more frequent crashes). The change has had a positive impact on engagement -- we've seen that people go on to use higher quality apps more and uninstall them less.

Developers focusing on performance can use the Play Console to help find and fix a number of quality issues. Android vitals identifies key performance issues, reported by opted-in devices which have your app installed, so you can address them. The pre-launch report shows you the result of testing your alpha or beta app on popular physical devices so you can catch issues before launching updates. Also, ratings and reviews can provide additional insights related to app quality, directly from people using your app. To see the positive effect this can have, find out how Busuu increased their rating from 4.1☆ to 4.5☆ by focusing on app performance.

Google Play strives to help people find and discover safe, high quality, useful, and relevant apps. By focusing on the quality and performance of your app, you'll find more success on Google Play. For more tips and best practices to grow your app or game business, get the Playbook app.