Google Play Top Charts app no longer ranked at all after changing title?

Question

A few days ago, I got an alert in my play console that they added more characters to the app title limit. I have an extremely highly rated and high performing multiplayer game that was ranked in the top charts #31 out of many thousands in a very competitive game category and frequently in the trending top charts as well. Within an hour of changing the title, it was completely gone from the top charts and not even ranked at all. All I did was add the word "Multiplayer" to the end of the game title so it changed from "Game Name" to "Game Name Multiplayer". This game gets multiple thousands of organic downloads per day and only 24 hours after this happened there have been 200 downloads and we are in a panic because this obviously killed the monetization dead in it's tracks literally overnight. This top charts multiplayer game is now dead. Can anybody chime in on this and possibly explain why adding the word multiplayer to the game title caused it to not even rank at all and not come back after 2 full days? That seems like an incredibly harsh punishment and is counter productive to the health of the play store. Has anybody else experienced this?

Answer 1

normally changing the app's name or the package name(application id) is never a good practice: it totally changes the ASO(it's the SEO for the apps) so it can(and normally it does) kill your business.

1° I know it's not the case but remember that if you change your package name(also known as applicationId into the manifest.xml) your app no more exists because you changed the name and the URL that linked to your app, so your entire work has gone forever!

2° as I said your old app's name, even if it's really similiar to your actual name, is different somehow, so play store first MUST check your name is not violating google policies(generally 1-2 days to check your new name is OK) and this revision is obviously negative for your ASO; secondly it has to reposition your new name that is like a new instance, not a similiar thing that exploit your old success.

I'm sorry, I have some apps, I understand.. I would try to contact google support:

from the play store homepage click on the question mark above on the right(next to the gear), click it and it will pop up a window on the bottom: inside that little window there is something like "contact us" and you can choose a chat or even a phone number. Maybe they can help you. Sorry if I don't post the number or the email but it changes depending on your country. Let me know if I can help somehow.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT THING:

have you changed the label attribute inside application tag of the manifest?

<application
    android:label="@string/app_name" />

Answer 2

According to the Developers Blog from Google, there are things that you can't change:

Once you publish your application under its manifest package name, this is the unique identity of the application forever more. Switching to a different name results in an entirely new application, one that can’t be installed as an update to the existing application.

The most obvious and visible of these is the “manifest package name,” the unique name you give to your application in its AndroidManifest.xml.

So, if you change it, it becomes a new app, and doing so it's subject to the same marketing etc. problems and battles that all new apps are.