Popularity score

Every keyword in ASO Atlas carries a popularity score from 0 to 100. It answers one question: how much do people actually search this phrase on the App Store? This article explains what the number means, what it does not mean, and how to use it without falling into the most common trap.

A relative scale, not a search count

Popularity is a relative measure of search interest, not a count of monthly searches. A score of 50 does not mean 50 searches, 50 thousand searches, or any other absolute figure. It means the phrase gets meaningfully more searches than a 30 and meaningfully fewer than a 70.

This is by design. Nobody outside Apple knows absolute App Store search counts; any tool quoting you "12,400 searches per month" is dressing up a guess. A relative scale is honest about what can be known, and it is all you need for the decision that matters: is this keyword searched enough to be worth a slot in my metadata?

Reading the scale

The scale is not linear. The jump from 60 to 70 represents far more extra searches than the jump from 20 to 30, and the top of the scale is reserved for a small club. Rough intuition anchors:

Score	What it usually means
Below 20	Barely searched. A 5 is effectively zero; do not spend metadata characters here.
20 to 40	Niche but real demand. This is where most winnable long-tail phrases live.
40 to 60	Solid demand. Genuine traffic, and usually genuine competition to match.
60+	Head terms. Big generic phrases and strong brands dominate the results.
90+	Household names. The biggest social and entertainment apps on earth. Not a target, a landmark.

Use the anchors as calibration, not law. A 35 in a tight niche can drive more installs for you than a 55 ever would, because the searchers are exactly your users.

Popularity alone is not a target list

The most common mistake is sorting keywords by popularity and targeting the top of the list. Popularity tells you how many people search; it says nothing about whether you can rank when they do. A popularity 70 keyword where the first page belongs to apps with a million ratings is worth zero installs to a new app.

Always read popularity next to difficulty. The keywords worth your characters are the ones where demand is real and the competition is beatable, and finding that intersection is the whole craft. How to pick keywords walks through the full framework.

Verified vs estimated

A score is backed by one of two things: verified Apple search data, or our calibrated estimate where verified data is not yet available. Estimates are honest approximations: good for ranking candidates against each other, less precise as an exact number. When verified data becomes available for a keyword, its score upgrades automatically; you do not need to do anything. The details live in verified vs estimated.

Scores are per country

Popularity is measured per storefront, because search behavior is local. "Fasting tracker" can be a solid 45 in the US and near zero in Japan; a local brand can dominate one country and not exist in the next. When you research a keyword, check it in the storefronts you actually sell in, not just the US. See countries and storefronts for how ASO Atlas handles markets.

Scores change over time

Search demand moves. Seasons shift it (fitness phrases spike in January, travel in June), news and trends spike it, and slow decline erodes it. ASO Atlas refreshes scores over time, so the number you see reflects current interest rather than a snapshot from months ago. Practically, this means two things: re-check your core keywords periodically rather than trusting an old research session, and treat a sudden move in a score as information, because rising demand on a keyword you already rank for is the cheapest growth you will ever get.