Methodology

How RespectASO analyzes keywords, estimates difficulty, and helps you make better ASO decisions.

Difficulty Score

The difficulty score (1–100) tells you how hard it is to rank for a keyword. It's calculated by analyzing the actual apps that currently rank in the top results and asking: how strong is this competition?

We look at seven factors that together paint a full picture of how tough the competition is:

Rating volume: How many ratings do the top apps have? Apps with hundreds of thousands of ratings are nearly impossible to displace.
Dominant players: If one or two apps hold the majority of ratings, they're extremely hard to outrank.
Rating velocity: How fast are competitors gaining new ratings? Fast-growing apps are actively maintained and harder to overtake.
Keyword in titles: How many competitors use this keyword in their app title? More title usage means more intentional targeting. Run-together spellings count too: "ScrollLess" targets "scroll less".
Star ratings: Average rating of competitors. Users prefer higher-rated apps, making it harder to compete against 4.8★ apps.
Market maturity: How long have the top apps been on the store? Older apps have accumulated downloads and authority over years.
Publisher diversity: Is the top 10 dominated by two publishers, or are there many different companies? More diversity means a healthier, more open market.

The algorithm also applies corrections. For example, if very few apps rank for the keyword, difficulty is capped downward regardless of individual competitor strength.

Brand Keyword Detection

When the keyword matches the #1 app's publisher name (e.g. "nasdaq" → Nasdaq, Inc.) and that app has few ratings while positions #2-5 are held by major apps, RespectASO detects a brand keyword. Brand apps get ranked #1 by Apple based on name match, not organic ASO, so their low rating count doesn't mean the keyword is easy. In these cases, the difficulty score reflects the full competitive landscape without any weak-leader adjustment.

Difficulty Tiers

The final score maps to 6 color-coded tiers. The last figure on each line is where a brand new app with the keyword in its title typically lands in that tier, measured in real App Store results; an app with ratings of its own does better.

1-15: Very Easy: almost no competition. Rank quickly with basic metadata. A new app typically lands #19 to #49.
16-35: Easy: light competition, achievable with good metadata. #52 to #92.
36-55: Moderate: meaningful competition. Requires strategic keyword targeting. #94 to #102.
56-75: Hard: strong competition from established apps with significant ratings. #102 to #123.
76-90: Very Hard: dominated by major apps. Breaking in requires exceptional execution. #123 to #135.
91-100: Extreme: category-defining keywords held by the world's largest apps. #144 to past #200.

Ranking Tiers: Top 5 / Top 10 / Top 20

Your position in search results determines how many people see, and download, your app. The difference between position #1 and #10 is enormous.

Positions 1–5: These apps get the majority of taps. Most users don't scroll past the first few results. If you rank here, you're in the premium real estate.
Positions 6–10: Still visible without scrolling far, but tap-through rates drop significantly. You'll get meaningful downloads, but a fraction of what the top 5 gets.
Positions 11–20: Most users never scroll this far. Downloads from these positions are modest, but for low-competition keywords, even position #15 can be worthwhile.

RespectASO calculates difficulty separately for each tier because the competition is fundamentally different. Breaking into the top 20 might be easy, but cracking the top 5 could require displacing apps with millions of ratings. The tier scores help you set realistic goals.

Popularity Score

RespectASO gives you two popularity sources and lets you choose which one powers your scores: the RespectASO estimate (built-in, works everywhere) and Apple Ads popularity (Apple's own measurement, connected through your Apple Ads account). Every popularity value shows which source produced it, and the other source's value is always one hover away on its badge; exactly one, your selected source, feeds opportunity, classification, and download estimates.

The RespectASO estimate

The estimate (1–100) is derived from the competitive landscape of each keyword. Since Apple doesn't publish exact search volumes, we read six observable signals:

Result count: More apps competing for a keyword signals higher demand.
Leader strength: Big apps don't bother ranking for obscure keywords. Strong leaders indicate high search volume.
Title match density: If many apps put this keyword in their title, developers clearly think it's worth targeting.
Market depth: When top results have substantial rating counts, it indicates sustained search interest.
Specificity penalty: Long multi-word phrases are naturally searched less often.
Exact phrase bonus: If many apps match the exact phrase in their title, the keyword likely has meaningful search volume.

Calibrated against Apple's official data

The signals are weighted by fitting them to thousands of Apple's official popularity values across several countries, and to search terms that fall below Apple's list. So the estimate speaks Apple's scale of 1 to 100: terms Apple reports land around 40 and up, terms almost nobody searches land well below, and a well-known brand search reads very differently from an unknown name.

A popularity of 60 is not 60 searches a day. It says how sought after a keyword is compared with others, and the Opportunity score turns it into searches and downloads for each storefront.

Apple Ads popularity (official API)

When you connect Apple Ads (a free, one-time API key setup, no ads or spend required), RespectASO syncs Apple's official top search terms dataset from the Apple Ads Platform API: per storefront and week, the most-searched terms in each of Apple's 15 categories, with a granular 1-100 popularity value, category rank, and Apple's 1-5 tier. A new week is published by Apple every Monday and picked up automatically.

Apple reports each category's top 500 most-searched terms per storefront, and reported values start around 40 on the 1-100 scale. A keyword outside that list has no Apple value, which is itself real information: Apple is indicating it ranks below every reported term of its category. Under the Apple source such keywords score from the RespectASO estimate, capped just below the least-reported value of their own category, marked with a visible EST* indicator, so a keyword outside Apple's list can never outrank its category's reported terms while long-tail keywords still rank sensibly against each other. Hovering the indicator shows the exact numbers: the raw estimate, the cap, and the category floor it came from. Apple Ads does not operate in every storefront. Where it does not, the estimate powers the score unchanged.

The two sources are separate measurements, so the same keyword can carry a different number in each. Everything in the app uses the source you chose, and the other value is a hover away on every keyword's source badge.

Why RespectASO offers both

Apple's popularity is Apple's own measurement, published through an official API. It covers only the top of the market (the most-searched terms in each category), it is updated once a week, and Apple publishes no method behind the value. That is true for every tool built on it. It has also shifted without notice before, most visibly in the September-October 2025 collapse that affected every tool reading it.

That is why the RespectASO estimate stays first-class: it's fully inspectable, works in every storefront for every keyword instantly, and it is your automatic safety net wherever Apple has no value. Apple's threshold has also given the estimate its first hard calibration point: download estimates under the Apple source are anchored to Apple's roughly-500-searches-per-week reporting bar. Whichever source you pick, the other number is never hidden: it's one hover away on every badge.

Country coverage

RespectASO scans every App Store storefront Apple operates, 175 of them. Three things differ from one to the next, and the app marks each one where you choose a country rather than leaving you to find out afterwards. The supported countries page lists every storefront with its own answer.

Where Apple reports popularity

Apple Ads, the source of official search popularity, does not operate in every storefront. In the rest the popularity score is RespectASO's own estimate. This is not a gap in the scan, it is a gap in what Apple publishes, and the badge on every score says which source produced it.

Listing languages

Apple offers App Store listing languages for about forty languages, not for 175 storefronts. Where there is no App Store language at all, your listing appears in your app's fallback language. Keyword research still works in those markets, because people search in their own language. What you cannot do is ship a listing written in it.

Popularity is relative, not a number of searches

A popularity of 43 means the same thing in every storefront: this keyword is sought after compared with other keywords. It does not mean 43 searches, and it does not mean the same number of searches everywhere. The searches behind it are popularity scaled by the size of the market, which is why the same 43 is about 110 searches a day in the United States and a fraction of one in Antigua & Barbuda. A keyword under one search a day is tagged Low Volume there whatever its popularity score, for every app and at every difficulty.

Market size

Download estimates are scaled by how large a storefront is relative to the US, and small markets say so. See Download Estimates below.

Opportunity Score

The Opportunity score (0 to 100) is the number to act on. It answers one question: "What is this keyword worth in this storefront, to the app I track it for?" It appears on every keyword in the app, and the Country Opportunity Finder ranks storefronts by it.

Where apps like yours land. Difficulty measures how strong the apps already ranking for the keyword are. Your app is measured on the same scale in that storefront: its ratings, how fast it gains them, its average stars and its age. How far it falls short of the difficulty, or clears it, says where apps like it land. That was measured, not guessed: RespectASO ran 309 real App Store searches in the United States, Brazil, France, Canada, Mexico and Italy, and recorded where each of the 5,846 apps with the keyword in its title actually ranked. Apps land all over the results. A brand new app, with no ratings yet, typically lands around #37 on a very easy keyword, #99 on a middling one, #123 at difficulty 75 and #135 at 90. On the very easy keyword about 1 in 5 reaches the top 10; at 90, fewer than 1 in 100 reach it. The few that reach the top get most of the taps, so the score averages the downloads over where apps like yours land. An app with ratings of its own does better. When your app already ranks higher for the keyword, its real rank is used. A harder keyword never means a better rank, and it changes a little at a time.
What that pays. The downloads where apps like yours land, averaged over all of them: the searches the keyword gets in that storefront, times how many searchers tap each rank, times a 5% install rate. The few that reach the top get most of the taps, so the average is well above what the middle app gets. Past the first 20 results the share of people who scroll that far keeps shrinking; it never drops to zero at a line.
The score. Those downloads on one scale: 50 is about one download a day, and every tenfold change moves it 20 points.

70 and up: about 10 downloads a day or more (Sweet Spot starts here)
50: about one download a day (Good Target starts here)
30: about one download every 10 days (Supporting starts here)
10: about one download every 3 months
0: about one download every 11 months, or fewer

Because every storefront goes through the same three steps, the score compares fairly across countries. The same keyword with the same difficulty always scores at least as high in a larger market, and more reachable downloads always means a higher score. Popularity cannot do this on its own: it is a relative index, so the same 48 is about 220 searches a day in the United States and about 7 in Argentina.

Every table shows one Opportunity number per keyword, and says above the column whose it is: a brand new app, the app being simulated, or on the Keywords page the app named under each keyword. Hover a score for what it means for that app, in downloads a day.

What the keyword would bring whoever holds #1 is the Downloads at #1 column beside it, so a low score never hides a keyword worth climbing for, and the Worth Climbing tag marks exactly those: little today, a download a day or more at #1.

The same keyword for two of your apps

It can score differently for each, and should: the stronger app in that storefront ranks higher, so the keyword is worth more to it. Each row names its app. Each app's ratings, stars and release date are taken from the App Store in each storefront, because they differ from country to country.

Keywords not tied to one of your apps score for a brand new app. The AI Researcher and the AI Competitor ask whose chances to score: a new app, starting from zero, or one of your apps, from its ratings and the ranks the Keywords page measured. The choice does not change how keywords are found; it changes their scores, and with them the keywords the AI recommends. Each run's header says whose scores it shows. The App Store ranks apps for keywords that match what they do, so when your app sits in another App Store category than the niche, the results say so, and the Competitor form warns before the run: the scores then read too high for keywords that do not match your app.

Download Estimates

For each keyword, RespectASO shows estimated daily downloads for ranking positions 1 through 20. These estimates combine:

Estimated daily searches: derived from the popularity score, anchored to Apple's own reporting bar: Apple lists its most searched terms, those with roughly 500 or more searches a week, and they start around popularity 40. For a term Apple does not report, the app writes the searches as “up to”, because the real volume can be far lower
Tap-through rate by position: position #1 gets roughly 30% of taps (always fully visible with icon, screenshots, and GET button), dropping steeply through the top 5 and gradually to less than 0.1% by position #20
Conversion rate: what percentage of people who tap through actually install. RespectASO uses 5%, the low end of published figures for free apps; your own rate depends on your icon, screenshots, ratings and price, and App Store Connect shows it
Market-size scaling: search volumes are calibrated for the US App Store, and every storefront has its own factor. 48 of them were measured against observed App Store data; the rest are derived from population and the region's typical iOS share, calibrated against the measured markets of a similar size, and the app marks a derived number wherever it shows one. Where that puts a keyword under one search a day, the app says so rather than showing a range of zeros

Every download figure is shown as a range, from a tenth of the estimate up to the estimate itself. Two things RespectASO cannot measure move real downloads that much: how many people search terms Apple does not report (its data only says they are below its reporting bar), and how many of the people who see your app install it. These are directional estimates for downloads from this specific keyword only. Your total downloads will include traffic from all keywords you rank for, plus browse traffic and other sources.

Two of these figures appear in the app, and they answer different questions. Downloads at #1 is what the keyword pays whichever app holds the top spot: the size of the prize. The Opportunity score is built on the downloads averaged over where apps like the one you track the keyword for land, which is the estimate at the top of every range. A keyword can pay thousands a day at #1 and next to nothing where a new app typically lands, and the gap between the two is what the Worth Climbing tag means. Every keyword table shows both, side by side: the Opportunity score for the app you track the keyword for (or a brand new app, in the AI Researcher and the AI Competitor tab), and Downloads at #1 beside it.

Apple publishes no search volumes or tap-through rates, so no ASO tool has exact numbers. Checked against one app's App Store Connect figures, its real downloads came in near the low end of the range: search volume for terms Apple does not report is where the estimate is least sure.

Insight Tags

Every keyword gets one tag, and each tag is one range of one number on its row, so a tag can never disagree with the numbers beside it. Demand comes first, and it is a fact about the keyword, not the app: when even #1 brings under one download a day, at the low end of the Downloads at #1 column, the tag is Low Volume, for every app and at every difficulty. Otherwise the Opportunity score decides, on round bars: Sweet Spot from 10 downloads a day, Good Target from 1, Supporting from one every 10 days, and below that Worth Climbing. Difficulty is not judged a second time: it has its own column, and it already decides where the app lands, which is what the score counts.

Each tag belongs to one of three decisions. Target now: the keyword is worth something at the rank you can expect today, and the tag says how much. Target and climb: it pays well to whoever holds #1 but little at the rank you can expect today. It is still worth targeting: putting a keyword in your title is how an app starts to climb for it, a title with it also ranks for longer searches that contain it, and it pays more as the app gains ratings. Skip: even the top spot pays little in that storefront. In the app, hovering a tag says what it means for that row: for the app you track the keyword for, by name, or for a brand new app when the keyword is not tied to one.

Sweet Spot: 10 or more downloads a day at the rank you can expect (Opportunity 70 and up). Target now.
Good Target: 1 to 10 downloads a day (Opportunity 50 to 69). Target now.
Supporting: one download every 10 days to 1 a day (Opportunity 30 to 49). Target now, as a supporting keyword.
Worth Climbing: less than that today, but #1 brings a download a day or more. Target and climb: it pays more as the app climbs.
Low Volume: even #1 brings under one download a day in that storefront. Skip.

When your app already has the keyword in its title and RespectASO knows where it ranks, that real rank is what the score uses, better or worse than where apps like it typically land.

Data Sources

Keyword research data comes from Apple's public iTunes Search API, plus, when you choose to connect it, the official Apple Ads Platform API using your own Apple Ads API credentials. If Apple's search API fails, RespectASO reads the same search on Apple's public App Store search page (apps.apple.com) instead, so the keyword still gets its results. From that page it takes only the list of apps, in the order Apple shows them, and it looks up each app's details through the iTunes Search API as usual. Nothing else is read from the page. With Pro, the Rival Tracker also reads your rivals' newest reviews from Apple's public review feed, about 50 per app and country. RespectASO uses no private Apple APIs and no paid data services. The free features run on your machine and send only your search terms to Apple's App Store, and your Apple Ads key stays on your computer.

Pro AI features (AI Niche Researcher, AI Competitor Analyzer, ASO Score Simulator) send your keyword and metadata inputs to the AI provider you choose: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, or OpenRouter (using your own API key), any OpenAI-compatible service you connect as a custom endpoint, or a local AI model you run yourself. The Rival Tracker uses the same provider for its keyword suggestions (your app's title, subtitle and keyword field) and for its summary of what your rivals' users complain about (their public reviews). With OpenRouter, your request is routed onward to the host of the model you select. With a custom endpoint, your request goes to the service whose address you entered. No data is sent anywhere else.

The scoring algorithm and its tests are open-source on GitHub. You can inspect, audit, and contribute to the scoring methodology.

Pro: ASO Readiness Score

The ASO Score Simulator (Pro feature) evaluates your app's title, subtitle, and keyword field to answer one question: "How much search traffic can this metadata bring my app?"

Your Readiness Score (0 to 100) is on the same scale as each keyword's Opportunity: it averages what the keywords in your metadata are worth to your app, weighted by where each keyword appears (title matters most, then subtitle, then keyword field).

Because Opportunity is scored for your app, so is Readiness. The same metadata scores higher for an app with more ratings, because such an app ranks higher for the same keywords. When a low score comes mainly from your app having few ratings, the Simulator says so and shows what the same metadata would score, and bring in search downloads, with 100 ratings. Every run also shows its ceiling: what that version would score, and bring in, at #1 for every keyword it targets. Each version has its own ceiling, because each targets its own keywords. The card ends on the next step: collect ratings, and try the versions in the Suggested Metadata tab. A refined version names the step it refines, as the Iteration Trail does. Once one brings about the same search downloads as that step, it says so, repeats what it still brings over your current metadata, and says ratings move the score more from there.

High score: your keywords can bring your app real search traffic at the ranks it can reach.
Low score: your keywords are too competitive for your app's ratings today, too obscure to bring traffic, or your app is too new to rank for them yet.

When you refine and simulate again, the Simulator compares versions in estimated search downloads, as a ratio, for example "Could bring about twice the search downloads of your current metadata". Both versions are scored for the same app on the same search terms, so the comparison holds whatever your App Store page converts. Wherever the Simulator gives downloads a day, it gives a wide range, from a tenth of the estimate to the estimate itself: real downloads depend on how many people search terms Apple does not report, and on how many of the people who see your app install it (your conversion rate), which RespectASO cannot measure. App Store Connect shows your real impressions and conversion rate.

Scores always use your app's ratings as RespectASO has them today. When your app gains ratings, past runs are scored again with them, and a line says what the run scored when it finished.

If any metadata fields are left empty, you will see a warning, but the score itself is based purely on keyword quality, not on whether you filled in the form.

What the Score Means

70 and above: Excellent: These keywords can bring your app strong search traffic. Rare outside big niches.
50 to 69: Good: Steady search traffic in reach. Fine tuning can add more.
35 to 49: Fair: Some search traffic. Look for keywords too hard for your app's ratings today.
20 to 34: Weak: Little search traffic today. Look for easier, more specific keywords, and collect ratings.
Below 20: Poor: Very little search traffic today. Common for a new app: ratings raise this score for every keyword at once.

Pro: Ranking Effectiveness Score

When you select a tracked app, the simulator also shows a Ranking Effectiveness Score (0 to 100) that answers a different question: "Are my keywords actually working?"

While Readiness looks at what your keywords can bring your app, Effectiveness looks at whether they are producing results today:

Are you appearing in search results? The more of your keywords you rank for, the better.
Are those rankings driving downloads? Ranking #2 for a popular keyword matters more than ranking #1 for a keyword nobody searches.
Are unranked keywords unrealistically hard? Not ranking for "instagram" is expected; not ranking for "photo timer" is a missed opportunity.

Together, the two scores tell the full story: Readiness says how much search traffic your metadata can bring your app; Effectiveness says whether those keywords are delivering results today.

Scoring Principles

Every score follows continuous curves rather than arbitrary buckets, so a small change in the inputs makes a small change in the score. There are no cliffs: a harder keyword, a smaller market or fewer ratings lower the score a little at a time, including past the first 20 search results, where the model keeps counting the few people who scroll that far. Automated tests walk every input in small steps, so a new cliff cannot slip in.

The tags (Sweet Spot, Low Volume and the rest) are names for ranges of the numbers on the row, never a separate judgement: Low Volume is a range of Downloads at #1, every other tag a range of the Opportunity score, so they move exactly when those numbers do.

Good to know

A rank is an app's place among the top 200 App Store results for the keyword, and the top 25 of those apps are the competitors every score is based on, so ranks always match the competitor list
Apple publishes no exact search volumes, for any tool. RespectASO uses Apple's own popularity wherever Apple publishes it, and its calibrated estimate everywhere else
Rankings move during the day, so each score is a snapshot of that day's results. Tracked keywords refresh by themselves every day, and Refresh brings a keyword up to date at once
Every country has its own keyword landscape, so check each market you target
Download figures are estimates, since Apple publishes no tap or install data