Google Bars Developers From Including User Testimonials In App Descriptions

Trying to find the best photography app, best travel app, best productivity app in the app store? Well chances are you might have actually tried to search for it by those those keywords into the search bar. Now some developers have taken advantage of that by including user reviews into the app’s description itself, and apparently Google isn’t too happy with that.

Google has recently updated its developer guidelines where they will now bar developers from including user testimonials in their app descriptions. For example some users might give testimonials that read, “Best app of 2014!” or “The ultimate app if you’re on holiday!” or phrases like that.

We guess some developers genuinely want these fantastic reviews to reflect the quality of their app, but at the same time it could lead to convoluted search results. The updated guideline now reads, “Please do not include user testimonials in your app description. They tend to be dubious and are frequently utilized to include references to popular search terms and competitor apps in violation of the policies outlined here. Let your users speak for themselves via Play’s comment review system.”

Hopefully this will help users perform more reliable searches in the future, but what do you guys think? Are you pleased with this new guideline as you were finding app searches a bit unreliable in the past? Or does it not make a difference to you?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Android, Apps, Google