Google play: Negative ratings with no comments

[JordiCP]

Hi all,

My app isn't having too many downloads up to now, but in the latest days the numbers seem to grow "a little bit" (as a cactus), even that still very far-far-far or pow(far, bignumber) away from being happy with it

Due to this small increase, I suppose that also ratings increase. Today I have received one "5-star" (thank you whoever it was) but also two "1-star" ratings without any kind of comment, nearly at the same time. So Obviously I can not answer them nor know the issue (simply they considered the app to be too bad?, it was not what they expected?, or it crashed in their device...no way to know, no chance to improve it)


Of course this is something I must deal with since it is the user's opinion. But it's frustrating not being able to know the why. Something to do in such cases?

 

[JohnD]

Hi all,

My app isn't having too many downloads up to now, but in the latest days the numbers seem to grow "a little bit" (as a cactus), even that still very far-far-far or pow(far, bignumber) away from being happy with it

Due to this small increase, I suppose that also ratings increase. Today I have received one "5-star" (thank you whoever it was) but also two "1-star" ratings without any kind of comment, nearly at the same time. So Obviously I can not answer them nor know the issue (simply they considered the app to be too bad?, it was not what they expected?, or it crashed in their device...no way to know, no chance to improve it)


Of course this is something I must deal with since it is the user's opinion. But it's frustrating not being able to know the why. Something to do in such cases?

I have no idea how someone could give your app a 1-star rating with no comment. I just downloaded it. It's looks great! I'm going to go back and rate it after I beat it up some. The one thing I did see is that I had no idea where the default directory was for images. A new user might have a hard time finding \Cam-aka and just give up?

 

[JordiCP]

Not necessary, I already beated them

In fact I don't mind (too much) if a user opinion is bad, as I may also not like any other app, it is fair

Just to share my experience, I decided to write (very kindly) to both of them asking i they could give more information. Don't know if it is a good thing to do it, but in my case one of them was very responsive and I could get valuable info, so turned the bad into something good.

 

[Informatix]

Hi all,

My app isn't having too many downloads up to now, but in the latest days the numbers seem to grow "a little bit" (as a cactus), even that still very far-far-far or pow(far, bignumber) away from being happy with it

Due to this small increase, I suppose that also ratings increase. Today I have received one "5-star" (thank you whoever it was) but also two "1-star" ratings without any kind of comment, nearly at the same time. So Obviously I can not answer them nor know the issue (simply they considered the app to be too bad?, it was not what they expected?, or it crashed in their device...no way to know, no chance to improve it)


Of course this is something I must deal with since it is the user's opinion. But it's frustrating not being able to know the why. Something to do in such cases?

When you see some comments for one-star ratings on other apps, there are reasons that are not directly related to the quality of the app (e.g. a guy thought that your app was a clone of Instagram because he didn't read anything before downloading it on his device).

 

[JordiCP]

I agree, there may be so many reasons that it's not worth worrying about it. (But one can't prevent feeling a bit offended for this after so many hours of work )

 

[JohnD]

Just got through writing rating for cam-aka FX. 5 stars. One thing I forgot to put in my review was that the "rate" and "about" menu options were not responding for me. Jay Diamond.

 

[JordiCP]

Thanks! Just sent you a message regarding the menu issue

 

[JohnD]

I added your country (all countries for that matter - I'm so dense sometimes) to the Google Play distribution list...If you wanted to download and rate, Thanks, JD.

 

[krzyszp]

I just rate your app, I hope this rise up your rating as it worth of it

 

[Informatix]

Tonight, I'm exactly in the same situation as you. I got my first one-star rating and I have no idea why (a jealous concurrent? a mistake?). I have no comment and no bug report in my console. It's frustrating from the developer point of view as I'd like to know what should be improved or fixed, but I don't worry too much as the whole rating system has a few major flaws that gives less importance to the meaning of these ratings: 1) people can rate anonymously, 2) they can rate an app even if they never installed it, 3) only a subset of the users of the app rates it.
EDIT: and there are companies that sell "good ratings" for your apps, so this rating system should not be considered seriously. Look at Angry Birds for example and explain me the 126000 one-star ratings...

 

[MikeH]

Most worthless rating system I know!

I take any anonymous or commentless ratings with a pinch of salt, good or bad.

 

[JordiCP]

I agree. We must consider that there is always some kind of additive "noise", and a percentage of the ratings, good or bad, must be taken just as this. Also, for big players as Angry Birds, there can be campaigns after it since ratings can affect popularity and thus bussiness itself.

Trying to find out the why to all of them is similar to guess which was the ultimate question whose answer was 42

 

[thedesolatesoul]

Google added a widget in the Play Store app, that is used to recommend more apps. It forces you to rate an app, and then it displays recommendations based on that. This is probably the source of most of the commentless ratings.

 

[sorex]

AB is quite boring after a handfull of levels maybe that's the reason.

I didn't know you could rate without being logged in, I can't comment without being logged in if I recall right.

 

[Informatix]

AB is quite boring after a handfull of levels maybe that's the reason.

And because you get bored, you will give it an one-star rating?

I didn't know you could rate without being logged in, I can't comment without being logged in if I recall right.

You have to be logged in to rate an app, but your name appears nowhere if you don't put a comment so ratings, for the most part, are anonymous. And you don't need to install or buy an app to rate it. So I can lower any rating if I decide to do so, even without knowing anything about the rated app and no one will know that I did it.

 

[sorex]

that sucks indeed, so it's easy to slap the competition.

 

[Informatix]

Seen this morning on the Amazon's app shop (translated from French):
"Another description all in english. Too bad because the developers made an effort to translate their application in french."
Followed by a sentence blaming Amazon... but the one-star rating is given to the application, to the guys who "made an effort". It's logical, of course!

 

[nwhitfield]

This sort of thing is one of the reasons I've avoided iOS, in particular. One of the apps that I have built is for a community site I run, for people into a particular dresscode. We probably reject as many applicants to the club as we accept, and some people get quite rude about it. I've had all sorts of abuse thrown at my view email in the past, and clearly some people just see a web site with the words "leather" and "gay men" and assume that it's a hook up site like any other, and fail to read (at least three times, if they try the online sign up) the rules, and requirements.

So far, with Android, we make the app available via our own site, which is ok for the more techy people, but plenty will be put off by that dire warning about apps from 'untrusted sources.' If we go to iOS, we won't have any choice but to go in the store; I can't expect members who assume because we use the word 'app' that it must be for their iPhone to jailbreak their device.

And, I dread the store experience, on both platforms. I know people will see the title of the app, and the brief description, and without thinking any further, they'll assume that it's something like Grindr, download it, and the post a negative comment, because they didn't realise you already have to be a member of the site, or because they applied to join and didn't understand the dresscode, or because they did join and realised it wasn't a quick way to get laid... any number of reasons, but very few of them will actually be about the quality of the app itself.

 

[lemonisdead]

For information : I had a small free app which was kindly rated by its users. After having refused the offer from an online marketer, it received a quantity of bad ratings and comments. I prefer not to pay attention to this point and continue to work with a free mind or I wouldn't produce nothing more.

 

[nwhitfield]

That's very interesting, lemonisdead; especially with my journalist hat on. Can you tell us if there was an explicit threat, "lovely app, be a pity if anything happened to its ratings" or if it just happened in a way that could be coincidence?