The ASO reference

The App Store indexes the title (30 characters) and subtitle (30) as the heaviest-weighted search fields. What is indexed, how field weight works, and when changes take effect.

How the hidden 100-character App Store keyword field is parsed and indexed: comma and space accounting, what wastes budget, what Apple already matches for you, and why nobody can read a competitor's field.

Many App Store storefronts index more than one localization — the US storefront also indexes Spanish (Mexico) — effectively doubling an app's metadata budget. How it works, the well-attested pairs, and how to verify any pair empirically.

Metadata decides what an app can rank for; behavior decides where it lands. Apple's stated factors, the observable ones, what does not matter, and how to watch rankings move.

Apple's Search Ads popularity index is the only demand signal Apple publishes — a relative 5–100 scale that floors most of the long tail. Where the number comes from, its blind spots, and how autocomplete fills them.

App Store ratings are territory-scoped and act on search mostly through conversion. The mechanics developers control — the reset, the prompt cap, responses — and how review text becomes keyword research.

App Store charts rank velocity, not lifetime totals, per storefront and per genre. What is public (ordered top-100 lists, no counts), why the grossing chart is the one public monetization signal, and how to read chart movement.

Apple publishes no revenue for apps you don't own, so every third-party figure is a model. The rank-to-revenue power law, calibration, why honest output is a band — and openaso's model in the open.