Where the first app writes the search term, and how often it does not write it at all

Across 1,346 keywords that Google Play itself suggests, the app in first place has the whole term in its title on 22% and somewhere in its listing on 56%. For phrases of three words or more it usually has only part of the phrase.

What we measured

For each keyword, the latest crawl of Google Play's top ten and each app's most recent full listing: title, short description and description. Only terms Play itself suggests in autocomplete are counted, so every term here is something people actually type. That leaves 1,368 keywords; 1,346 of them have a first-place app whose full listing we have read. Apps whose listing we have not read are left out, not counted as missing the term.

A field carries a term when every word of the term begins a word in that field, the same rule as in our post on titles. We then tried two looser readings in turn: ignoring accents, and allowing a word to end differently (up to its last three letters, keeping at least four). Each app is put in the first class that fits, in this order:

• Title: the whole term is in the title.
• Title and short description: not in the title alone, but the two fields together carry every word.
• Description: every word is there only once the long description is included.
• Different spelling: every word is there only without accents or with a different ending.
• Part of it: some words of the term appear, not all.
• None: no word of the term appears in any form.

The app in first place

The first four columns together are the apps that have the whole term somewhere: 81% for one-word terms, 67% for two words, 51% for three, 40% for four or more. The longer the phrase, the more often the first app wins it with only some of its words.

The short description does not separate the places

The title has a clear slope: the higher the place, the more often it carries the term. The short description, counted only where the title does not already carry the term, has none. Two-word terms, where we have the most data:

Around one app in seventeen puts the term in its short description and not its title, at every place. That does not make the field useless: it is indexed, and it is the second line people read. It does mean that, in these results, it is not what tells first place apart from tenth.

One in five first apps never writes the word

On 15 of the 79 one-word terms, the app in first place has the word nowhere in its listing, in any spelling. Looking at the words explains most of it: a misspelled brand (the first app's name is a letter or two away), a web address or a word that appears only in the package name, a fragment of a sentence ("won't open", "I want") that leads to the app the sentence is about, function words, and a term in one language answered by an app that uses its translation. Play matches the query to the app, not only to its text.

For a product term, the practical reading stays the same: an app that ranks without the word has some other strong link to the query, usually being the well-known app the query refers to. That is not something a listing edit can copy.

What it does not say

This is a cross-section of one crawl, not an experiment. An app in first place may carry the term in its title because it is the obvious app for the term, not the other way around. Listings are read as of their latest full crawl (median seven days old, 86% within 30 days), so a recent edit can be missing. Our looser readings are rough and can match a different word that happens to start the same way.

What to do with it

• Put your most wanted one or two words in the title. It is the only field whose share rises with the place.
• Do not try to fit long phrases whole. For three-word phrases, the first app has the whole phrase in title and short description less than a quarter of the time, and only part of it nearly half the time.
• Write words in the form people search them. One first-place app in ten has the term only in another spelling or with another ending; a tool that does not match those forms will tell you a term is missing when the listing in fact carries it.

Where the numbers come from

ersASO's production database on 9 October 2026: the latest measurement of 1,368 keywords that our users track or discovered and that Google Play suggests in autocomplete, each measured within the previous seven days, almost all of them in a single store and language. The numbers describe these keywords, not Google Play as a whole.

Related guide: Reading a listing audit (ASO score) and acting on it