App not showing up on Android Market search at all?

Solar2D Android
#1

I just released my game on Android Market, and by and large it went off without a hitch. My direct link works, so it’s on there and live, however it doesn’t show up in search, even by its direct name.

The direct link is https://market.android.com/details?id=com.undercoverdoxie.alphabatty

And the game is called “AlphaBatty”, but if I go to the front page of the app market and search for “Alpha Batty” or “AlphaBatty” nothing shows up. I’m stumped as to what to do, since obviously it’s hard for word of mouth to spread if the only way to find a game is with a direct link!
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#2

Hmmm. I’ve never thought about that, but now I see that I have the same problem when searching for my app on the Android Market! That might explain the very low sales, as opposed to the Apple Appstore.

I’m searching using a web browser (Safari on a Mac), and there are no hits when typing in the name of the app. Testing with other names like “Angry Birds” works though. What gives?
I did the same search on appbrain.com. No problems. I found my app there, and I also found AlphaBatty there, released last saturday, right?

I have no clue as to why the apps are not being found on the Android Market website though.
My app was released in August.

Any hints would be welcomed. [import]uid: 70847 topic_id: 16894 reply_id: 63324[/import]

#3

Relax. It will eventually show up. We had the same problem with our own Magic Defenders when we launched it. For the first 3 days there wasn’t a single download and it didn’t show up on searches. It also took almost a month for it to appear on App Brain for some reason. [import]uid: 61899 topic_id: 16894 reply_id: 63336[/import]

#4

(*imaginary lightbulb illuminates*)

The Android Market is filtering IP addresses by country. Some countries don’t have access to the Games category due to legal reasons imposed by the government.
I happen to be living in Korea who filters categories. From the info I’ve found, the Games category restrictions apply to South Africa, Korea and Brazil (there may be others).
This is a limited issue and only affects people living in a few countries, however I just wanted to point this out.

One way around this issue (for me at least if I want to sell games here), is to publish under the Entertainment category, thus circumventing this whole issue.

My guess is that Appbrain doesn’t do this filtering, so that’s why I see the apps there.

EDIT:
The same issues apply to the Apple Appstore here in Korea (currently there’s no Games category available in the Appstore). The whole issue revolves around content rating. All games released here must be rated according to a government approved rating system, and Apple’s and Android’s rating systems are not one of them. [import]uid: 70847 topic_id: 16894 reply_id: 63328[/import]

#5

I’m in the US so I don’t think that’s the issue. I also noticed that colleagues of mine that shipped their games AFTER mine had theirs show in the search.

Also, the game shows up in a search on AppBrain.

My understanding is that an app should show up in the market search within minutes of publication, this isn’t the kind of thing that takes days to propagate.
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#6

BTW, looks like this is a known issue – Google has posted an alert on the issue visible in the developer dashboard. [import]uid: 44812 topic_id: 16894 reply_id: 63895[/import]