Have you been having trouble finding apps in the App Store lately? Try it now. Word has it that Apple has undone whatever it did to to the Store’s search algorithm last weekend.
Last Saturday, search results in the App Store appeared to all of a sudden start favoring download numbers and other factors ahead of app names and keywords. It was bad…
Not only was it bad for users, who had a much harder time locating relevant applications, but it was especially bad for developers, whose apps went from top 5 search results to top 50.
But never fear, a new report from TechCrunch today suggests that Apple has tweaked the algorithm again to add some weight back to app names and keywords, effectively fixing the problem — for now.
Don’t expect this to be the last of the antics. Between Apple’s recent purchase of Chomp, its ongoing work on the new App Store, and rumors of an all-new iTunes in the works, we imagine we’ll be seeing plenty more of App Store “tweaks.”
The problem is, a lot of developers depend on the App Store’s search function for both downloads and revenue. And for those folks, it’s going to be a bumpy couple of months.
[TUAW]