May 06, 2020. Sep 04, 2020. Aug 27, 2020. After you've signed up for a Google Play developer account, you can upload apps to Google Play using your Play Console. Tip: When building your app, use Google Play’s recommended publishing format, the Android App Bundle. Create an app. Go to your Play Console.; Select All applications Create application.; Select a default language and add a title for your app. Type the name of your app.

The Google Play Store is committed to connecting users with a diverse catalog of high quality apps. Our recommendations are composed of a mix of human curation and algorithmic calculations, of which, the two largest components considered are relevance and quality. The best practices below explain how we evaluate quality for your app, independent of which user might download it.

Play’s focus on quality encompasses the entire user experience, from your app’s description to the in app experience. These topics should be familiar, but you may not be aware of all the specific guidelines and tools Play offers to help you reach your app’s full quality potential.

This page will evolve over time, so please check back whenever you are preparing to launch or update your app. Remember to also check the Developer Policy Center guidelines and work with Google to build the most trusted and safe source of apps for users around the world.

Create a high quality and engaging app

Google Play understands that building a high quality and engaging app is an art form. To provide users with a meaningful and lasting experience, you should offer the proper variety and depth of content for your users, and avoid doing anything that may negatively impact a user’s ability to engage with your app.

• Craft intuitive and responsive navigation, controls, and menu options. For apps with more complex features, consider creating a tutorial as part of your first time user experience to walk a user through.
• Be up front with permissions and your data use with users. Always keep your privacy policy up to date and be mindful of the types of permissions you request.
• Provide the appropriate level of features and content that users would expect from your store listing or other marketing materials.
• For apps with ads integrated, ensure a good user experience by choosing the right ad format and placement throughout your app. Avoid placing ads in ways that could negatively impact a user’s experience, including placing ads excessively and in places that mimic system or app dialogues.
• Think about building your app with localization to expand your reach to users in different markets. Make sure to properly test your localization (strings, UI elements) for every locale before publishing.
• Provide a unique or innovative solution, use case, and experience for your users to help your app stand out from the crowd.
• Ensure you are building an app where users can discover continued value. You can monitor this by analyzing key performance metrics like retention rates, active user counts, and other engagement metrics. Use peer benchmarks to see how you perform to get ahead of any negative trends.
• Monitor your user ratings and reviews, address common issues, and respond to negative reviews where possible. When receiving a reply from developers, users increase their rating by +0.7 stars on average.

Prepare every release for a successful launch

Android App Store Vs Apple

The following best practices will help you prepare for launch and navigate and monitor key metrics to ensure you provide users with the best and most stable experience possible.

• Create the right testing plan on the most used Android devices for your app. Use testing tracks to release early versions of your app to gather user feedback, make improvements before full release, and keep up with releases of Android for compatibility.
• Enable pre-launch reports to identify where your app has problems and ensure you’re presenting the highest possible quality to users upon launch. The pre-launch reports use automated tests on real devices that can identify layout issues, provide crash diagnostics, locate security vulnerabilities, and more.
• Review the Android vitals dashboard to see how your app is performing on core vitals metrics including crash rate, ANR rate, excessive wakeups, and stuck partial wake locks in the background. Look at peer benchmarks to see how you measure up to others in your category.

Build an effective store listing page

Discovery of your app starts on the store listing page. Build trust with users and make a strong first impression with an effective and accurate store listing page. Users should be able to clearly understand what your app will offer from the app description, screenshots, and other metadata provided on the listing page.

• Use strong creative assets, including your app title, description, icon, feature graphic, screenshots, and video, to provide a clear and accurate representation of your app experience. Adding a video to your app's listing page and including three or more 16:9 screenshots can increase the conversion rate.
• Provide accurate categorization and content rating to help Google Play promote your app properly.
• Run store listing experiments to A/B test different versions of your listing page, including variants of your icon, description, screenshots, and more, amongst actual Google Play users. Make sure to test each component independently and run tests for at least a week in order to gather significant results.
• Customize store listings and tailor your marketing messages to highlight key features and updates for individual countries. Ensure the information provided is clear, succinct, and informative for your users.
• Localize your app store listing to ensure content is specifically tailored for users in different markets around the world.
• Make sure to include up to date and accurate developer website and contact information in case users need to reach you.

Android App Store Approval Time

Get the most out of the Google Play Console and learn about improving app quality through free e-learning courses on the Academy for App Success.

Related

This guide is for publishers who want to monetize an Android app withAdMob and aren't using Firebase. If you plan toinclude Firebase in your app (or you're considering it), see the AdMobwith Firebase version ofthis guide instead.

Integrating the Google Mobile Ads SDK into an app is the first step towarddisplaying ads and earning revenue. Once you've integrated the SDK, you canchoose an ad format (such as native or rewarded video) and follow the steps toimplement it.

Prerequisites

• Use Android Studio 3.2 or higher
• minSdkVersion 16 or higher
• compileSdkVersion 28 or higher

• Recommended:Create a Google AdMob accountand register an app.

Import the Mobile Ads SDK

Apps can import the Google Mobile Ads SDK with a Gradledependency that points toGoogle's Maven repository. First, make surethat google() is referenced in the allprojects section of yourproject-level build.gradle file.

Example project-level build.gradle (excerpt)

Next, open the app-level build.gradle file for your app, and look fora 'dependencies' section.

Example app-level build.gradle (excerpt)

Add the line in bold above, which instruct Gradle to pull in the latestversion of the Mobile Ads SDK and additional related dependencies. Once that'sdone, save the file and perform a Gradle sync.

Update your AndroidManifest.xml

Add your AdMob App ID to your app'sAndroidManifest.xml file by adding a <meta-data> tag with name com.google.android.gms.ads.APPLICATION_ID, as shown below.

You can find your App ID in the AdMob UI. For android:value insert yourown AdMob App ID in quotes, as shown below.

Initialize the Mobile Ads SDK

Before loading ads, have your app initialize the Mobile Ads SDK by callingMobileAds.initialize()which initializes the SDK and calls back a completion listener onceinitialization is complete (or after a 30-second timeout). This needsto be done only once, ideally at app launch.

Here's an example of how to call the initialize() method in an Activity:

Example MainActivity (excerpt)

If you're using mediation, wait until the completion handler is called beforeloading ads, as this will ensure that all mediation adapters are initialized.

Android App Store Apps

Select an ad format

The Mobile Ads SDK is now imported and you're ready to implement an ad.AdMob offers a number of different ad formats, soyou can choose the one that best fits your app's user experience.

Banner

Android App Store Download

Rectangular ads that appear at the top or bottom of the device screen.Banner ads stay on screen while users are interacting with the app, and canrefresh automatically after a certain period of time. If you're new to mobileadvertising, they're a great place to start.

Interstitial

Full-screen ads that cover the interface of an app until closed by the user.They're best used at natural pauses in the flow of an app's execution, such asbetween levels of a game or just after a task is completed.

Native

Customizable ads that match the look and feel of your app. You decide how andwhere they're placed, so the layout is more consistent with your app's design.

All App Stores For Android

Rewarded

Android Apple Store App

Ads that reward users for watching short videos and interacting with playableads and surveys. Good for monetizing free-to-play users.