Google Play "shadow ban" - how can I appeal?

[sanuy]

In January I created a new play store account and uploaded a new app - I live in a new country and existing merchant accounts doesn't transfer to banks on another country so I needed a new developer account for iap.

That app doesn't show on searches on Google play no matter what title or keywords I use. If I use random garbage in tile like "pink foot short crocodile router" I do show up on exact (full) title searches but not for any meaningful keyword. I do not show up even if there are less than 50-100 results for keywords/combinations so it has nothing to do with ranking or popularity.

From iOS shares/direct links I did get about 200 android installs and I have over 30% retention rate after 30 days. This is huge for a mobile app so "is spam" or "is low quality" doesn't apply as rule for search ban.

Does anyone knows how I can reach someone from Google to manually review the app and lift the search ban? Using their emails forms provides only canned dumb responses an plenty of "give us your money" links.

I am thinking of stirring up the shit over this - quora, stack overflow questions, blog posts about how crappy Google Store actually is for indies but is too much works and I'm too lazy to go on a pointless crusade against Google.

 

[vertigoxyz]

You can try to republish same app and unpublish old one.

 

[sanuy]

You can try to republish same app and unpublish old one.

That was the first thing I did - republish it with a new package.

I assume is because the account is new is account wide.

I signed up for all the bells and whistles from start - merchant account, alpha/beta testing, Google play game services and api services (uploading apps automatically using their api). My guess is that I tripped some spam wire with this and my account is in a weird flagged state.

Cba to get a new account to test this theory and risk tripping even more detection on their side, especially since as far as I can tell I did nothing wrong.

All in all I really hope Google is taking down for their monopoly, this "no human involved" combined with "we do whatever we want unless you spend millions on our ads" policy is beyond ridiculous.

Even Apple with the bad press they get for their walled garden is a breeze to deal with. Right now Amazon is my single android install source and is frustrating to get 1 play store install to 1000+ Amazon installs - the ratio should be the other way around and I have no idea how to fix this.

 

[Bartolomeo]

Then make another account. They only charge like $25

 

[Lukmat]

Yes, if they shadowban, they do it not for app but whole account. I have it too on my some accounts, apps not extending 50 installs