I’ve just heard that app package names are used as key items in search engines for finding the app, so maybe we should be more descriptive there. I would have thought that the play store title and description would be more important for search engines, but it would be good to know if our package names should be more detailed and “readable”.
As an example, I have a dictionary going up soon, and I was planning on using “org.sil.shu.lexique.lift” as the package name. That’s pretty “technical”, and if the package name is used in search, it might be better to use something like this: “org.sil.chad.shu.chadian.arabic.dictionary”.
Your thoughts?
Yes, several App Store Optimisation (ASO) sites recommend that your package name is readable - in order to improve search ranking. That is why we are recommending that you use the full language name in the package name rather than just the language code.
Hopefully they also make use of the play store title, description, etc. as the package name would likely only be in one language (English, for example), but your audience might be more French.
In that case would you recommend using French (without accents, obviously) in the package name? E.g. my package is currently:
org.sil.shu.chadian.arabic.lexicon.dictionary.lift
Would it be better to make it:
org.sil.shu.arabe.tchadien.lexique.dictionnaire.lift
Yes, for keywords, the app title is the most important (and can be translated). The short description and full description are important too. Google doesn’t tell us what their algorithm is for weighting all these things, but the key is to identify the most useful keywords and to make sure they appear.
Since the main audience will be people searching in French, it would make sense to use French terms in the package name.