It amazes the lack of REAL information online…. specially in the ASO world. 
In the last 2 days I have been researching a lot about the Nokia App Store http://store.ovi.com … and trying to understand how their algorithm works. OH Boy what a painful experience.
‘To start it seems It seems I’m the only person doing some type of research? Seriously… just Google Nokia App store Optimization and enjoy lack of results ! 😉
So here are my findings .
The Nokia Store works as a bad, bad, bad, copy cat of Google Play…. a As an ASO consultant, I like that… yes I’m bios, I like optimization in Google play a bit more vs the App store.
At first sight, the advantages of the Nokia Store is the lack of competition but the problems is that the algorithm works a bit hectic.
The Nokia Store Algorithm has in “theory” the capacity to understand “co-relation between popular apps” but it sucks BIG TIME to be precise and find accurate results when using the basic search.
Let me explain:
OVI store seems to give more priority to co-relations rather than accuracy.
This can be a great opportunity to get random traffic, but it can really really affect you if your app is extremely niche.
Let’s see an example
Learning Spanish (yep.. going back to my South American roots)
For Learning Spanish we get the 1st app called
Learning Spanish
This first result can be triggered to the title. (a bit similar to an EMD domain name – exact match domain name)… so it make sense it ranks first
But then we get random results in the top 5 positions like
- Learn Science
-
Learn French
- Learn Derbakeh
-
Learn Vietnamese
Etc etc
So the unusual thing is that more Spanish doesn’t appear in the 1st page.
Weird? you bet.
At the start I though it could be an issue with order of words, thinking that Learn Spanish vs Spanish Learn could provide different results. In theory in any smart algorithm (aka Google) this will be case, but with Nokia app store the algorithm doesn’t seem to have make any clear difference.
Now the concerning part is how instead of moving from Title –> to description, Nokia Algorithm moves from First keyword in Title to —-> Second keyword Title –> to description
Confused?
Welcome to the club.
Let me explain this once again…
Instead of trying to find “learn Spanish” in the title and then move to the description, the algorithm will move from looking from “Learn Spanish’ in the title to look from “Learn” in the title… and then “Spanish” in the title… to then move to the description.
Ideal?
No really.
Mainly because it gives way to much strength to keywords in the title vs a potential description where the keyword can be included.
Another example of how this brings horrible results is when I look for “time management” in the Nokia Store…
So we have Biotechnology Management in 1st page?
What???? Yep. An app that is not optimized. that doesn’t include the time management reference is in first page for time management.
Crazy?
you bet… but even more crazy when you realize that Nokia think that the following apps are related to Biotechnology Management App
Here are the most popular items that are similar to Biotechnology Management:
So as you can see, nothing to do with Management or either Biotechnology…. but rather just popular apps in the Reference section, where this App comes from.
Frustrating?
Yes.
Mainly because the co-relation between topic and “related” keywords is none.
So is there any hope for App store optimization in the Nokie Store?
Yes.
not everything is lost.
First hope for Nokia is…..
TO HIRE ME (so if you are reading this NOKIA TEAM = CONTACT ME!!!!!)
In a more serious note…
based on my findings the Nokia App store still give us some clear signs of what can be done ASO wise:
- Huge opportunity for Long tail keyword
- I predict over 85% of Apps are not optimized
- Huge importance of keywords in titles
- Very high importance to apps with reviews vs apps without reviews (even if the reviews are bad)
but … although the good news are a bit optimistic I finished my review of the Nokia Store a bit more frustrated than optimistic.
Bad news:
- Many apps appear in position 1 , position 2 and position 3 without any clear explanation why.
- Lack of understanding of relationship between Keyword and meaning of keyword. For “shooting game” the algorith will not give you “games” instead shooting apps.
- Huge amount of irrelevant apps in the top results
- Easy to target by spammer and loaders of crappy apps.
I just hope that sooner or later the Nokia Store realizes that the same amount they spend in marketing their phones… and their app store… the same amount (or at least 10% ) needs to be invested in making their algorithm not just smart, but at least a bit less stupid.
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