[Journey] Building an iOS & Android App Empire

Thanks for this thread. I'd been thinking about starting up a couple Android apps but the number of issues you've had worries me. I would ask if you had any recommendations for avoiding the ban hammer but it sounds pretty random by what you're saying.
 
Thanks for this thread. I'd been thinking about starting up a couple Android apps but the number of issues you've had worries me. I would ask if you had any recommendations for avoiding the ban hammer but it sounds pretty random by what you're saying.
At the moment I am wondering if all those "random" bans happen because the competition is reporting me. They probably know Google is swining the banhammer without really looking into the problem. I mean, just read about my specific case earlier in this thread. Now I will try to avoid it and then lets see what is going to happen.
 
Bot catches you, they throw ban hammer without check , if bot finds anything unusual more reviews or install growing at exponential rate bot will flag you and you get a ban
 
Bot catches you, they throw ban hammer without check , if bot finds anything unusual more reviews or install growing at exponential rate bot will flag you and you get a ban
Nope, they send me screenshots...and the screenshots are definitely taken by a human...or at least a human took the screenshots and reported the app..
 
Can you specify the following:
Revenue - 20 to 30 $ per day
How many apps you have live ?
Total app downloads each day ?

I am also in the same journey but with games.
 
Can you specify the following:
Revenue - 20 to 30 $ per day
How many apps you have live ?
Total app downloads each day ?

I am also in the same journey but with games.
At the moment live apps:
Android: 5 Android apps (2 got removed before)
iOS: 6 Apps (uploaded the latest one yesterday and it also got approved)

About the earnings: No idea now. I didn't check it since 7 days. At the moment I am in Thailand in a quarantine hotel and I only have one wifi connection. I don't want to log in to my Admob accounts. I will wait until I can get out of the hotel and get separate sim cards. I brought different phones with me which I reset, then I put a new sim card in it and will use them to handle Admob with them.

Also about the downloads: No idea yet. Maybe in total around 30k, but that's not really matter.

The earnings depend on how you place the ads, what kinda ad (interstitial, banner, reward video), the ad network and so on. Its really complex.
 
At the moment live apps:
Android: 5 Android apps (2 got removed before)
iOS: 6 Apps (uploaded the latest one yesterday and it also got approved)

About the earnings: No idea now. I didn't check it since 7 days. At the moment I am in Thailand in a quarantine hotel and I only have one wifi connection. I don't want to log in to my Admob accounts. I will wait until I can get out of the hotel and get separate sim cards. I brought different phones with me which I reset, then I put a new sim card in it and will use them to handle Admob with them.

Also about the downloads: No idea yet. Maybe in total around 30k, but that's not really matter.

The earnings depend on how you place the ads, what kinda ad (interstitial, banner, reward video), the ad network and so on. Its really complex.
Thanks for the information
 
Will upload two more Android apps today.

About organic traffic: There is definitely something like a "shadow ban" or "sandbox" in the search/algorithm of the play store. Takes several weeks until Apps are getting a better ranking WITHOUT external downloads.

About niches: Sometimes it can be beneficial to enter niche with low demand, but without any competition. Earnings can be higher than a niche with high demand and high competition.
 
Will upload two more Android apps today.

About organic traffic: There is definitely something like a "shadow ban" or "sandbox" in the search/algorithm of the play store. Takes several weeks until Apps are getting a better ranking WITHOUT external downloads.

About niches: Sometimes it can be beneficial to enter niche with low demand, but without any competition. Earnings can be higher than a niche with high demand and high competition.
I personally pump up with external download , it gives a huge boost sanbox period is shit ,30 no download
 
Update:

Uploaded three more apps (2 android - 1 iOS) and looking forward for another iOS app later.

Earnings: At least $15 per day from Facebook and Unity. No idea about Google admob earnings. I didn't login there for 11 days already. My guess is I made at least $15 there as well. So, it is at least $30. Might be more tho since I uploaded a few more apps. I will check it out next week.

Started a case study:

Hypothesis: Some apps are getting suspended because the competition is reporting them. Exploiting the unclear policies of the Play Store.

Why this hypothesis? First of all: I know for a matter of fact there have been two Indian guys and a Thai guy who reported my app. How do I know this? When Google suspended my app they were showing me screenshots and the ads in these screenshots were in these languages. So there are two possible scenarios: The Google employees were in India and in Thailand or the guys who reported my apps and uploaded the screenshots (which were then being used by Google and sent to me) are from these countries.

I do not believe the Google algorithm is RANDOMLY checking and opening apps, taking screenshots by itself and then suspending the app and sending out an email. I simply don't buy it. It must be human-made.

What am I going to do?

I will make two of my apps (which I just uploaded) unavailable in these countries, where I believe they might use these kinda "blackhat techniques".

This is no offense and no racism, but from my experience, there are several countries where developers are uploading absolute shit low-quality apps and INSTEAD of spending their time improving their own apps, they are out there to hurt other developers. It's a matter of mindset. I also experienced this kinda stuff in the SEO business. I don't want to name the countries, it doesn't matter.

Just to be clear: I never did and will never report any other app or website. I might only report them if they copy me or use my content, simple as that. I always want to improve myself, learn more stuff and add new functions to the apps. I simply don't have time to look through the Play Store, download apps and report people. Its not the way I do business and I don't want to be like this. Its very very poor.

So let's see what is going to happen.

If I am wrong and the apps are not getting reported from these kinda guys, then the apps will get suspended sooner or later.
If I am right and these kinda devs were reporting my apps then they won't even see my apps again or they won't be able to download them, because they are unavailable in their countries.

Its definitely not the ideal thing to block a whole country, but I do it to protect myself.
 
Ok boys, today I bought a new sim card for one of my phones to log in to one of my Admob accounts. As you know its probably to the best way to get banned if you log in to multiple accounts with the same device/IP/etc. so I waited until I could buy a new sim card.

Tried to log in to the Admob account, but couldn't because the account got suspended. I checked my emails and guess what was their reason? "My account has something to do with cracking and hacking" and that's why they deactivated it. The email is in german, so there is no sense in copy-pasting it here.

First of all: No single application I made is hacking or cracking anything.

Here is what I believe happened:

Before I made a post about how they suspended my application for a hyperlink. You can find it here. I sent an appeal, first got no reply, then I sent another one and they gave me a generic answer and mention something about "hacking". I replied and asked them where I hack anything? No answer. How did they suspend my app? They sent me a suspension email, attached a screenshot which was showing a "hyperlink" and quoted their policy. Placing an outgoing link to a normal site is NOT hacking. Especially when the content of the link contains only text, no links itself.

Now they took this "reason" to ban my Admob account for the same reason....and of course...more than $300 are gone.

I sent an appeal now and asked them to show me evidence of hacking or anything related to it. Because they didn't. There was no proof in their suspension email. Just plain assumptions, which are not true.

Guys, if I could give you one piece of advice it is: Don't get involved with Google. They are pure evil. They removed my app for an absolute wrong and ridiculous reason and then they took this to suspend my Admob account with hundreds of dollars in it. It is completely crooked.

I was even thinking to publish the whole email and screenshots, revealing my niche, just to show you guys how ridiculous it actually is. The problem: It wouldn't change anything. Seriously thinking if I should sue them, but I just left Germany...

TL:DR

Google suspended my Admob/Adsense account for "hacking and cracking" (which is not true!), stole hundreds of dollars, didn't give a single piece of evidence.
 
And another Android app got removed. I am not wondering anymore. Lol. Just seems so super random to me. Also, I highly doubt its an algorithm that removes the app. It is definitely a human.

My guess is some people (very likely competition) keep reporting it and they take advantage of the Google employees, which are quite lazy and randomly swing the banhammer.

So I am going to do an experiment. I will make the app unavailable in those countries. This is probably mainly India, Indonesia, Thailand and Pakistan. No hate or anything against them, but they are very likely to do such stuff. Since some of my competitors also use "black hat techniques" to get reviews etc., I think they will also mass-report other apps/developers. In fact I know there was at least one Thai and one Indian who reported two of my apps, which then got removed.

Just an experiment...and then lets see how long the app is going to survive!
It's a bit early maybe but is there any data from this experiment?
 
It's a bit early maybe but is there any data from this experiment?
Not yet, Google takes really long to review the apps. It has been 7 days and none of them got accepted. Still in the review so far...
...which is also ridiculous. Why would they accept my apps first (they take so long to review it!) and later on remove/suspend the app, even tho I didn't change anything. The app they first approved and which had no problem, later violated their policies? Just alone this procedure shows how incompetent and crooked the Google Play Store and its employees are.
 
And here I'm still waiting for your admob payments.
 
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