Hi, my name is Michael Barton and I work with Pioneer Bible Translators East Africa Branch.
Last week 4 of our 15 SAB apps were suspended (updates weren’t rejected but previously approved apps were suspended) from the Google Play Store based on their repetitive content policy. Basically they said, “Please note that we don’t allow creating multiple apps with highly similar functionality, content, and user experience. If these apps are each small in content volume, developers should consider creating a single app that aggregates all the content.”
An appeal to these suspensions has already been rejected. Now I am preparing a longer response to their support team, but that is still in process.
In the coming weeks I will be trying the following:
multiple book collections (i.e. at least one other translation in a different language).
verse on image
verse of the day
redesigning app icons
changing app names to begin with the language name instead of Biblia or similar words
perhaps having a developer account for each language community would show higher ownership in the publication of their Scripture?
Has anyone else encountered suspensions like these? Did you find anything that worked? If I find things that work, I will post them on this thread for posterity.
I had two apps suspended a month ago.
App#1) was single script of language A
App#2) was created a year later and was a di-script for the same language
I had planned to eventually disable App#1.
They listened to my appeal and turned on App#1. Even though I had asked for them to re-eneable App#2. So I basically replaced App#1 with App#2, they seemed ok with the final result.
Hi Michael
Couple of days back Google suspending our App based on repetitive content. We have multiple Apps with similar functionality but different languages. some of even same languages but added huge reference list. I appeal, they reply like this : We don’t allow apps that merely provide the same experience as other apps already on Google Play. Apps should provide value to users through the creation of unique content or services. What is the solution? how to handle this issue? can you give any sugestion please, because you went through this issue. Thank you.
Prasad
Is the descriptive material in Google Play in the same language for all the apps that are similar but in different languages?
If so an easy solution that worked for us was to change the language in the description. For example if you have the descriptions in Hindi for all the apps you should change the first part (say the first 1000 or so characters) into a description in the local language you are working with so that Google can see that they are not the same.
Also you could try changing the icons if you are using the same icon for each app.
And if you have the same screenshots for the apps change that as well and resubmit them.
Be sure the names are different as well. We use the local language in our names as well so Google knows they are different products and not just the same thing.
If you have links that you can share we might be able to help you with more specific advice.
I’m sorry to hear that others are facing this issue as well. I recently republished 4 apps that were suspended after differentiating them in many ways. They were suspended again! They do still have similar wording in their store page so I’m going to try switching that up as well.