Provide better ratings and reviews for users and developers

Author/Google Play Product Manager Tom Grinsted, Scott Lin and Tat Yang Koh

As we all know, scoring and evaluation are very important. They are valuable qualitative and quantitative feedback that can reflect the user's experience in applications, games, and the various services you provide. Therefore, users will use ratings and reviews as reference factors for their selection and download on Google Play.

We learned from users and developers on the Play Store that ratings and reviews may have a deeper impact. Especially when the score of a certain region has a negative impact on other regions, for example, an error occurred in a certain country/region affects its score in the world, or is limited by the large number of mobile device users and ignored Active improvements to tablet devices. Therefore, we are ready to start a long-term improvement plan to create a more personalized scoring mechanism that can reflect the expectations of each user and make it easier for developers to navigate and use:

• since November 2021 cases, mobile phone users can view the registration country / region-specific rating;
• 2022 Nianchu , using as tablet device , Chromebook and wearables other equipment, users can view their devices exclusive score.

Developers are well aware of the connection between ratings and potential users, so they pay close attention to ratings. To ensure that you can fully understand the upcoming changes, we have optimized the Play Management Center so that you can understand your app’s ratings and reviews (especially cross-device ratings and reviews).

Google Play Management Center optimization

equipment type data analysis

One of the most important and effective changes is to support data analysis for different device types, and you can adjust the user interface accordingly. Adding optimized tablet device layouts to Chrome OS, or providing better mouse and keyboard support, can greatly improve user experience and affect user ratings and reviews.

△ Play management center rating overview and new device type rating data analysis on the classification page

In order to help you find various device types more easily and track the impact of improved experience, we have added a new device type dimension to the rating page and added a device type filter to your review so that you can You can easily view the ratings of tablet device users on your app, or the content of users’ comments in Chrome OS.

More flexible date and time filtering

Many developers tell us that they want to obtain more granular data than existing filters. Therefore, we will further refine the filtering options for your convenience. You can now individually select the time period you want to plot (from the last 28 days to the complete application life cycle), and integrate scoring data (daily, weekly or every 28 days) according to your ideas. This way you can get more granular data over a longer period of time.

△ Select any time range and time period individually to view the scoring data you want to know

easily download data

We also support downloading the average data and score distribution of your app in CSV format. Combined with the new data filtering options, you can easily query and download more data, and perform offline analysis. For example, you can download the complete history of the daily score distribution and associate it with customer service in a table.

△ Access and download all your data directly from the overview page (including rating details)

are now effective in the Play Management Center. Welcome to visit score analysis and evaluation for trial. *

*Please note: You need to have a Play Management Center account to access the above link.

Upcoming Google Play score changes

Scoring helps users decide which app to download, and it also affects the featured content and ranking on the Play Store. However, because the application experience will vary depending on the user's region and device type, the comprehensive score sometimes does not accurately reflect the real situation. Therefore, starting from November 2021, we will provide scores based on the registration area of individual users, and further provide scores based on different device types at a later date.

This means from November , mobile phone end users will be able to see it score in the exclusive country / region. Therefore, users in Japan will be able to view app ratings submitted by other Japanese users.

At the beginning of next year We will further update the scoring function to subdivide the devices users use when browsing the Play Store into tablet devices, foldable devices, Chrome OS, Wear or Auto. This helps users to better choose the equipment they use. We recommend that you check recent device type ratings (especially those of tablet devices with a strong development momentum) to see if you need to optimize the user experience.

We know that as a developer, you want to make sure that you understand the major changes in ratings before users, and you are prepared in advance. So at least 10 weeks before the Play Store changes, we will automatically analyze the changes that your app will face, and tell you to see more than 0.2 stars on any device type in the main market (the number of visitors to the product listing is greater than 5%) The developer of the level score change. This will allow you time to make important changes to your application.

We will implement the changes in Google Play from November and provide country-specific or region-specific ratings. At the end of this year, you can find information about ratings in the inbox of the Play Control Center. You are welcome to continue to follow the official WeChat public account to get the latest information at any time. Now you can know in advance about countries/regions and device type *

*Please note: You need to have a Play Control Center account to access the above link.

Google Play Academy is newly released!

Free Chinese courses designed by Google product experts based on the needs of developers will help you succeed on Google Play.

Enter Google Play Academy: g.cn/playacademy register an account and start the learning journey!