Apple's search popularity score: what it measures and how to use it

Where Apple's popularity score comes from#

Neither store tells you how many people search for a word. App Store Connect has no keyword data: asked in a WWDC26 group lab, Apple confirmed it does not provide keyword-level data there. Apple's search popularity lives in Apple Ads, Apple's search ads product, where it helps advertisers choose keywords.

It comes in two forms. The Apple Ads dashboard shows a Search Popularity value from 1 to 5. The Apple Ads Platform API, whose version 1.0 was released in August 2026, adds a weekly and monthly list of popular search terms with finer scores. Apple's Insights overview states the purpose: to discover high-volume search terms, understand seasonal trends, and prioritize keyword additions. Those are ad tasks, but the same questions come up when you choose words for a listing.

The 1-to-5 score in Apple Ads#

Apple's glossary calls it a relative indicator, designed to help you learn which keywords in search results campaigns might be most important for promoting your app. You meet it in two places:

• On the Recommendations page, next to each keyword recommendation and each bid recommendation for search results campaigns. Apple shows recommendations for apps that are actively running campaigns.
• In Insights, where the predefined Impression Share reports show a search term's popularity in each country or region. Apple notes these reports display only the last 12 weeks.

Five steps is coarse. Two words can share a 3 and still differ a lot in how often people search them, and the score cannot separate them. Apple does not publish where one step ends and the next begins.

The weekly and monthly list in the Apple Ads Platform API#

The API's Search Term Popularity Query returns what Apple calls the relative search volume ranking of search terms for an App Store genre and country. Apple scopes it tightly, and the scope decides what it can tell you.

That bar is the only search count Apple attaches to the list: every listed term had at least 500 searches and 10 impressions within the reporting period. Apple does not say whether the searches are counted in that country alone, or which impressions it counts.

One detail trips up anyone who stores the list: Apple's docs disagree on what the week field holds. The SearchTermPopularityRow definition says it is the date immediately following the completed week, and the query page's example dates January 5 to 11, 2025 as January 12. But the example rows on the SearchTermPopularityRow and SearchTermPopularityQueryResponse pages, for the same week, show January 5, and Apple's impression share rows use the week's start date. Keep the range you asked for next to each row. Because weekly data is kept for 65 weeks, a week you don't save is gone once it rolls out of that window.

Apple has other popularity numbers. The API's keyword, phrase and category suggestions each carry a relative popularity score, on a 0 to 100 scale by Apple's suggestions overview. The keyword score is "not an absolute volume". The phrase endpoint can also look up the popularity of phrases you name, so a term below the weekly list's bar may still get a relative score there, though Apple's request reference says every such request must name an app. Apple does not say how these scores relate to the list's 1 to 100, so keep them apart.

To read the list you need an Apple Ads account and an API user with one of the API roles; read-only roles exist. Apple's Insights overview says both Insights endpoints apply only to App Store app campaigns, but the Apple pages read for this guide do not say whether a campaign must be running for the list to return rows.

What the score is not#

• Not a search count. Apple calls the list a relative ranking and the dashboard value a relative indicator. It never gives searches per term.
• Not zero when missing. A term absent from the list has no score on that list. It may have fallen below 500 searches or 10 impressions that period, or below 500th place in its genre. Treat it as unknown.
• Not a ratio. Apple does not say how scores map to searches, so do not read a 60 as twice the searches of a 30. Read the order, not the gaps.
• Not portable. A score belongs to one country, one period and one scale. An in-genre 80 in TRAVEL and an in-genre 80 in GAMES measure against different lists; compare across genres with the all-genre score.
• Not relevance. Popularity says how often people search a word, not whether your app answers it. Apple's search weighs text relevance and user behavior such as downloads and ratings, so a popular word that does not describe your app reaches searchers who want something else.

Some listed terms may be app or brand names. Apple's keyword field rules say names of other apps or companies aren't allowed, so leave those rows out when you pick words. Apple also does not say how a search term is assigned to a genre, so look a word up in every genre that could hold it.

How to use it to choose between words#

Popularity is most useful at one step: choosing between words that all describe your app. Start from relevance, then let popularity order the shortlist.

1. List the words that describe what your app does, from your reviews, the store's search suggestions as you type, and rival listings. Drop any word your app doesn't answer. The App Store keywords guide covers this step in full.
2. For each storefront you care about, look each word up in the same week or month and on the same scale. Use the all-genre 1 to 100 score when the words sit in different genres.
3. Order the words that have a score. Where two words fit the app equally well, give the higher-scored one the place where it also reads well to a person: the title or subtitle.
4. Keep words without a list score if they fit the app closely. Unknown is not zero, and a specific phrase below the list's bar can still bring searchers who want exactly what you offer.
5. Check the same week a year earlier. The 65 weeks Apple keeps reach past the same week last year, so you can tell a seasonal word from a steady one.
6. After the change goes live, read App Store search impressions and downloads in App Store Connect for whole weeks before and after. That is a before-and-after read, not a controlled test.

NoteExample, with invented numbers: a sleep app weighs "white noise", "sleep sounds" and "rain sounds for sleeping" in the US. In one week's list, "white noise" scores 62 overall and "sleep sounds" 55; the long phrase is not listed. Both short terms fit, so the higher one takes the subtitle. The long phrase has no score on that list, which means unknown, and it describes the app exactly, so its words still go in the keyword field.

For a small country, try the monthly list. The bar of 500 searches applies to the reporting period, so a term can clear it over a month and miss it in every single week. For a market in another language, look words up in that storefront's own list; the localization guide covers which languages each storefront supports.

A high score is no reason to repeat a word either. As the keyword field page notes, words already in the title or subtitle do not need to be repeated in the keyword field, and the keyword field counter flags duplicates.

Google Play has no published counterpart#

The Play Console Help pages read for this guide describe no popularity score for search terms. What Play Console offers is your own traffic. The Search term dimension in the store listing reports shows the term a user searched for before reaching your listing, and terms without enough visitors are grouped as "Other". In those reports, Google Play search counts searches for your app's name or a closely associated brand, so read the Google Play guide before you treat a term there as generic search.

When you aim a custom store listing at search keywords, Play Console offers the keywords known to bring your app traffic. That too describes your app's traffic, not demand across the store.

Where RocketASO fits#

RocketASO reads your App Store and Google Play reports, names the fix estimated to be worth most this week, and compares installs before and after it. Search volume is never estimated: Apple's own popularity score (1 to 100) shows when Apple Ads is connected. It starts you with a draft of the copy or the keyword field, nothing reaches the store until you approve it, and each read is a before-and-after read, not a controlled test. To check a public listing first, run the free ASO audit.