# How Uptika measures every number

> Uptika is an ASO and store-intelligence tool that reads App Store and Google Play search results every day; this page explains, step by step, how those readings become keyword popularity, difficulty, visibility and the 0–100 ASO and Uptika scores.

Uptika team · Published: 2026-11-05 · Last updated: 2026-11-05 · https://uptika.app/en/guides/methodology

## What does Uptika measure, and where does it come from?

Uptika measures what the stores show publicly, plus the numbers you connect yourself. Nothing is guessed: when a reading fails, that day stays empty instead of being filled with an estimate.

| Measurement | Source | Depth | How often |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keyword rank, App Store | iTunes Search API, in search order | First 200 results | Daily, from 04:00 Istanbul time |
| Keyword rank, Google Play | Public Google Play search page | First result page, about 30 apps | Daily |
| Rating counts of the top results | Listings of the first 10 results | Top 10 | With every rank reading |
| Keyword popularity, 1–100 | Store autocomplete: App Store search hints, Google Play suggestions | Up to 10 App Store hints, 5 Play suggestions per prefix | Re-read when older than 7 days |
| Keyword difficulty, 1–100 | Rating counts and titles of the top 10 | Top 10 | With every rank reading |
| Category charts | App Store RSS feeds, Google Play top charts | App Store up to 100, Google Play up to 200 | Every 3 hours |
| Rival listings | App Store lookup, Google Play app page | Title, short text, icon, screenshots, version, price | Daily, compared day to day |
| Rival downloads | Google Play: install count on the listing. App Store: new ratings per day, because Apple publishes no install counts | | Daily |
| Reviews | App Store customer-review RSS per country, Google Play reviews | Newest first | Every 6 hours |

Every storefront (one store in one country, for example Google Play Brazil) has its own readings, charts and score. Your own installs, sources and listing conversion come from App Store Connect and Google Play Console when you connect them; those reports arrive with the delay the stores have.

## How is keyword popularity measured?

Uptika measures popularity by how early the store's own autocomplete offers a search while it is being typed. A search people type often is suggested after one or two letters; a rare one only appears when it is nearly complete, or never.

1. Uptika types the term the way a person would: every letter of the first 8 characters, then word by word, then the whole term.
2. After each prefix it reads the store's suggestions for that country: App Store search hints (up to 10) or Google Play suggestions (up to 5).
3. The term counts as offered when a suggestion is the term itself, or a longer search that starts with it: "visa" is offered when "visa appointment" is suggested.
4. The first prefix where that happens sets the score.

`popularity = 100 − 11 × min(letters − 1, 3) − 5 × max(letters − 4, 0) − slot penalty − 4 if only a longer search was offered`

- **letters**: characters typed when the term was first offered.
- **slot penalty**: the position in the suggestion list (0 = top) × 2 on the App Store, × 4 on Google Play.
- An offered term never scores below 2. A term that is never offered scores 1.

| First offered after | Slot | Offered as | Popularity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 letter | Top | The term itself | 100 |
| 2 letters | Top | The term itself | 89 |
| 3 letters | Top | The term itself | 78 |
| 4 letters | 3rd, App Store | The term itself | 63 |
| 4 letters | 3rd, Google Play | The term itself | 59 |
| 6 letters | Top | A longer search | 53 |
| Never | | | 1 |

Popularity is a relative scale, not a search count: neither store publishes organic search volumes. Uptika keeps the raw reading (letters typed, slot, exact or longer), so the scale can be re-tuned without reading the stores again. App Store hints are read in 28 storefronts: US, GB, TR, DE, FR, ES, IT, BR, MX, CA, AU, NL, SE, JP, KR, SA, AE, IN, ID, PT, AR, CO, CL, PL, RU, AZ, UA and EG.

## How is keyword difficulty measured?

Difficulty says how hard it is to pass the apps in today's top 10 for a search. It combines how established those apps are, measured by their rating counts, with how many of them carry the search in their title.

`difficulty = 100 × (0.7 × average strength + 0.3 × title share)`

- **strength** of one app = min(1, log10(rating count + 1) ÷ 5.5). About 316,000 ratings or more is full strength; 10,000 ratings ≈ 0.73; 1,000 ≈ 0.55; 100 ≈ 0.36.
- **title share** = the share of the top 10 whose title contains every word of the search.
- The result is clamped to 1–100 and recomputed with every daily rank reading.

| Top 10 for the search | Average strength | Title share | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apps with about 10,000 ratings each, 6 of 10 titles carry the term | 0.73 | 0.6 | 69 |
| Apps with about 100 ratings each, 1 of 10 titles carries the term | 0.36 | 0.1 | 28 |

## How is search visibility measured?

Visibility is the popularity-weighted share of taps your positions would get across the keywords you track in one storefront, on a 0–100 scale. A visibility of 100 means you are first for every tracked keyword.

| Position | Tap-share weight |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1.00 |
| 2 | 0.60 |
| 3 | 0.45 |
| 4–5 | 0.30 |
| 6–10 | 0.15 |
| 11–20 | 0.06 |
| 21–50 | 0.02 |
| 51 and below | 0.005 |
| Not ranked | 0 |

`visibility = 100 × Σ (popularity × weight of position) ÷ Σ popularity`

A keyword without a popularity reading counts as 10. The weights are a fixed model of how taps fall off down a results list, not measured tap data. Example: three keywords with popularity 80 at #2, 50 at #12 and 20 not ranked give (48 + 3 + 0) ÷ 150 = 34.

## How is the ASO score calculated?

The ASO score rates one app in one storefront, from 0 to 100, as the weighted average of nine parts. Each part is scored from your own numbers; a part without data is left out and the remaining weights are re-normalised, so a missing number never counts as zero.

| Part | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Search visibility | 20 | Visibility above, mapped as 100 × (1 − e^(−visibility ÷ 12)): a visibility of 12 already scores 63 |
| Keyword coverage | 15 | Popularity-weighted share of fitting keywords you rank for: positions 1–3 count fully, 4–10 count 0.75, 11–30 count 0.35, 31–100 count 0.1, deeper 0.03 |
| Metadata efficiency | 15 | How many of your 8 most popular keywords are fully in the indexed fields (55 points), plus how fully the title (15), the subtitle and keyword field (App Store, 10 + 20) or the short description (Google Play, 30) are used; words repeated between title and keyword field cost points |
| 7-day movement | 10 | Popularity-weighted change in tap share over 7 days; 50 means no change |
| Competitive strength | 10 | Your rating count against the median rating count of the top 10 on your most popular keywords, on a log scale |
| Listing conversion | 10 | Google Play store-listing visitors to acquisitions over the last 30 report days; 30% is a full score; organic traffic is used when ads bring more than half the visits. Not scored on the App Store yet |
| Ratings and reviews | 10 | Average rating (4.6 or higher is full) for 55%, number of ratings (1,000 or more is full) for 45%, minus 3 points per unanswered 1–2 star review in the last 30 days |
| Freshness and visuals | 5 | Days since the last update (30 days or fewer is full) for 70%, number of screenshots (6 or more is full) for 30% |
| Localization | 5 | Share of installs from your top 6 countries that see a listing in their own language |

Average rating maps in steps: 4.6 and up = 100, 4.3 = 85, 4.0 = 70, 3.5 = 45, lower = 20.

### Which keywords count?

Only keywords that fit the app count toward the score. Uptika labels every tracked keyword as fitting, your own brand, a rival's brand (people searching for another app by name), or another kind of app (fewer than 30% of the top 10 are in your category). Rival brands and other-intent keywords stay visible in the panel but are left out of the score. Automatic labels are suggestions until you confirm them.

### What do the grades mean?

| Score | Grade |
|---|---|
| 80–100 | Very good |
| 65–79 | Good |
| 50–64 | Average |
| 35–49 | Weak |
| 0–34 | Critical |

## How is the Uptika score calculated?

The Uptika score rates the whole app rather than one storefront: it averages the ASO scores of all the app's storefronts and adds business signals, again leaving out any part without data.

| Part | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| ASO | 35 | Average ASO score across the app's storefronts |
| Growth | 15 | Installs in the last 14 days against the 14 before: 50 + 60 × change, so +50% scores 80 |
| Revenue | 15 | Monthly revenue on a log scale (about $1,000 a month is the full level, 65%) and its pace against last month (35%), when revenue data is connected |
| Retention | 10 | Google Play uninstalls ÷ installs over 30 days: 30% or less = 100, 50% = 75, 80% = 45, 100% = 25, above = 10 |
| Category rank | 10 | Best position in the followed charts over the last 2 days: top 10 = 95, top 50 = 75, top 100 = 55, lower = 35, in none = 8 |
| User satisfaction | 10 | Store rating from 3.0 (0) to 4.8 (100) |
| Organic share | 5 | Share of installs from non-paid sources over 30 days; 60% or more is full |

## What does Uptika not do?

- It does not invent search volumes or download counts that the stores do not publish. Rival App Store downloads are not public, so Uptika shows their new ratings per day instead.
- It does not fill a failed reading with a guess. The day stays empty, and any estimate in the panel is labeled as one.
- It reads public results for a country storefront without a signed-in user. What one person sees on their own phone can differ slightly because of personalisation, device and the paid ad slot at the top of App Store search.

## Where can I read more?

- [What is ASO?](https://uptika.app/en/guides/what-is-aso) covers the basics and the differences between the two stores.
- [How keyword rank tracking works](https://uptika.app/en/guides/keyword-rank-tracking) explains the readings in more depth.
- [ASO glossary](https://uptika.app/en/guides/aso-glossary) defines every term used on this page.
- [How to measure ASO impact](https://uptika.app/en/guides/measure-aso-impact) shows how to use these numbers in a clean before-and-after comparison.
- [AI search and app recommendations](https://uptika.app/en/guides/ai-search-app-recommendations) covers discovery in AI assistants, which has no store rank to measure.

## Questions

### How is keyword popularity measured?

Uptika types the term into the store's own autocomplete letter by letter, reads up to 10 App Store search hints or 5 Google Play suggestions after each prefix, and scores the first prefix where the term is offered on a 1–100 scale. It is a relative scale, not a search volume: neither store publishes organic search volumes.

### How is keyword difficulty calculated?

difficulty = 100 × (0.7 × average strength + 0.3 × title share). Each top 10 app's strength is min(1, log10(rating count + 1) ÷ 5.5), and title share is the share of the top 10 whose title contains every word of the search. The result is clamped to 1–100 and recomputed with every daily rank reading.

### What is an ASO score?

The ASO score rates one app in one storefront from 0 to 100 as the weighted average of nine parts: search visibility (20), keyword coverage (15), metadata efficiency (15), 7-day movement (10), competitive strength (10), listing conversion (10), ratings and reviews (10), freshness and visuals (5) and localization (5). A part without data is left out and the other weights are re-normalised.

### How often does Uptika update data?

Keyword ranks are read daily from 04:00 Istanbul time: the first 200 App Store results and about 30 on Google Play. Difficulty is recomputed with every rank reading, popularity is re-read when older than 7 days, category charts every 3 hours and reviews every 6 hours. A failed reading stays empty instead of being estimated.

## Sources

- [iTunes Search API (Apple)](https://performance-partners.apple.com/search-api)
- [App Store search (Apple Developer)](https://developer.apple.com/app-store/search/)
- [Get discovered on Google Play search (Play Console Help)](https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/4448378)

## Free tools

- [Keyword Atlas](https://uptika.app/en/tools/keyword-atlas): Measures one search term in up to 10 countries on both stores: popularity, difficulty and each market's top 3 apps in one table.
- [Listing X-Ray](https://uptika.app/en/tools/listing-x-ray): Holds a store listing's searchable fields against the store's own suggestions and the category's top 10.

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Uptika is an ASO and store-intelligence tool for the App Store and Google Play. https://uptika.app/en