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Google releases new tools to filter manipulated app ratings in the Play Store.
Google has just announced the release of a series of security measures meant to improve the Play Store. The set of tools are meant to detect and remove fake and dangerous apps, maintain a free of spam service and more.
The main purpose of the new Play Store tools is to have a system that combats developers and content creators who use illicit methods to increase the rank of their app in Google’s charts. More specifically, the tools will include a detection and filtering system that will lead to the removal or at least downgrading of apps which owe their ranks to fraudulent installs, fake reviews, and incentivized ratings, and other similar methods.
Although Google already has a system in place to prevent this type of actions of rank manipulation, the news tools are said to be more efficient in their task thanks to increasing their accuracy in detecting artificial attempt of improving a apps’ rank. As a direct result, fewer malicious apps will manage to slip through the cracks of the system.
The Google Play Developer Policy clearly prohibits any measures of manipulating an app standing. Misleading ranks can affect both the developer community, as the new and genuine apps are left behind because of the manipulation of others, and the end users, which can be led to download a wrong app. The new tools will help keep the Play Store clean and trustworthy. Developers who offer apps of high-quality will have a chance to get good rankings based on actual downloads and genuine ratings, while users will be able to make informed decisions based on real rank metrics and not just on inflated numbers.
According to Google, the new system can detect if an install is conducted with the purpose of manipulating the app’s placement in the store, and as such it will be filtered out from the total number of downloads. Repeated violations of Google’s policy through continued patterns of behavior meant to manipulate the rank could lead to the app being removed from the Play Store.
Google has already started to roll out the new system. It remains to be seen how drastically the app rankings will change.
What do you think about this new set of tools for the Play Store?
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