The cusp band

The difference between 14th and 27th matters far less than how many people search the word. Which is why the Cusp Actions screen sorts the band by popularity rather than by rank.

The source of that popularity is on the screen too: Apple's own Search Ads figure, or an estimate derived from the storefront. Estimates are marked separately.

For a cusp keyword there is one question: where does this word sit in the metadata right now?

Ranking for a keyword needs two separate things, and their costs differ enormously. The first is relevance: Apple associating your app with the phrase. The second is rank: where it places you among the apps it associated.

Building relevance from nothing for a phrase you never appear on is expensive. It means rewriting metadata, probably revisiting how the product is positioned, and waiting weeks for the index to settle. And the result is not guaranteed: Apple may never associate you with that phrase.

For a phrase where you already sit at 24, relevance is long since established. Apple has said "this app is about this phrase", put you on the list, and simply not placed you high. The only thing missing is a few places of rank - and rank is won by moving the phrase within your metadata.

The 11-30 band is exactly the band of that situation. Every phrase sitting there has passed Apple's approval and failed to reach the first page.

The first page is where almost all of a search ends. Users do not scroll; they open one of the first few results.

So an app at 12 is, for that phrase, effectively invisible. But the invisibility is not caused by irrelevance - it is two places of distance, and two places is a distance a single metadata move can cover.

This also explains why the distance between ranks is not linear. Going from 10th to 9th is worth far more than going from 30th to 29th. That is why the band's lower bound is 11: the top 10 is already the first page.

The upper bound of 30 is an observation rather than a law: below thirty the gap usually does not close with a single metadata move and something has to change on the product side. It is not a law of nature - phrases just outside the band appear in the table too.

There are usually more phrases in the band than you expect. When a list of thirty or forty comes out, the first reflex is to work all of them - which ends with none of them worked.

The first cut is popularity: phrases whose popularity could not be measured leave the list - set aside, not deleted. Blank does not mean zero, it means unknown, and priority cannot be built on unknowns.

The second cut is difficulty: if the median rating count of the top 10 is several times yours, that phrase is not taken with metadata today. It moves to a separate list and you return as the product grows. This cut usually takes a third of the list, and taking it is good.

The third cut is distance: phrases at 11-15 are far cheaper than those at 26-30. The fourth is room: where in your metadata will the phrase go? If there is no room, it cannot be spent this week; making room is its own job.

The band changes in weeks when you do nothing. Not knowing that, you attribute every change to your own move and draw the wrong conclusion.

The largest source is rivals: a rival changing metadata on a phrase you did not touch pushes you down one. A rival pulling their app lifts you. Neither has anything to do with you, but both appear in your panel as your rank.

The second is seasonality: when popularity rises so does the number of apps entering the phrase, so holding the same rank takes more strength. A band emptying in one period and filling in another is usually this.

The third is Apple's own side: how often the index refreshes and how the fields are weighted change from time to time, and are not announced.

Practically: keep a weekly photograph of the band. The band is a measurement in itself, and how it moves over time says more than how individual phrases move.