Can I hide my application in Google Play Store? [closed]

Question

I'm developing an Android App only for my clients and I want to publish on Google Play. Is there a way to hide the application from searches and make it only accessible by URL? To use the app, people need a license, and I don't want someone searching for "XYZ" to see my app.

Hosting the APK on my servers is not a solution, since I update it very often and prefer the Play Store update system.

Answer 1

Google Play now allows you a new way to distribute internal applications(Google Play Private Channel):

The Google Play Private Channel for Google Apps (the Private Channel) allows Google Apps domains to distribute internal Android applications to their users through the Google Play Store.

Here you can find the announce on Google Enterprise Blog and here the instructions to set up this feature.

Answer 2

One way is to publish it very temporarily, then tell everyone to download it, and right after that to unpublish the app.

Another way is to put the right description of the app (alpha, preview,...) and allow only selected users to actually use it (others can download, but it won't work for them). you can let only the selected users to make it work using any method you wish.

However it's done, you should think how to make the license expire at some point.

Another way is to put it on a server and make the app check for a new update every now and then. You might also use google drive, but I'm not sure how.