Google Play Store tags have been available since August 2019. In addition to selecting categories for your app or game, Google allows you to add up to 5 tags. A "tag" is a predefined word that describes the content and features of your app or game for users. Tags have gained high visibility in the Play Store and should be an integral part of your ASO strategy.

What are Google Play tags?

In addition to categories, developers can also add "tags" to their app listings. Both categories and tags help users search and discover new apps in the Google Play Store.

Categories: Google uses categories to group apps together. Users can then search or discover new apps or games by browsing through a category in the Play Store.

Tags: Tags help Google understand what your app is about. Google says that tags may affect where your app is displayed in the Google Play Store.

Search results

Needless to say, tags can have a huge impact on the success of your app. There are two main ways to discover your app in the Google Play store. One is the "Search" when they use the search bar. The other is "Explore" or "Browse" when they just go through the Google Play Store. For example, for "Truck Games for Kids", Google shows "Education", "Simulation" and "Vehicles " as tags for the app. From the user's point of view, these tags definitely help in selecting the apps to check or download.

In short, tags will help Google aggregate similar apps together to show users relevant content as they browse the store. Therefore, developers can expect "Explore" to have an impact on display counts and downloads when updating tags. Tags allow Google to cluster apps across categories to provide users with better content.

Tags will enrich the contextual data collected by the algorithm and then match apps to each other and present them to users.

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Peer Groups

Tags can also help you better measure the performance of apps, as Google emphasizes that they also affect the same age group you're being compared to. Google uses tags to group apps together and determine which apps should be recommended to users. There's even a special section called "Similar Apps" that groups apps together based on their similarity. Peer Groups allows developers to compare their app's ratings, vitals, and acquisition data to similar apps or games.

As of March 2020, tags are now also displayed in search results, next to the developer's name, and next to the number of downloads and ratings. Since tags are now so visible in search results, they may also have an impact on conversion rates.

Google Play tags 2022

Below is a list of tags you can choose from for apps and games. Keep in mind that Google recommends that you only change the app's tags if you make significant changes to the app's content or features.

How do the Google Play Store tags affect your ASO?

The purpose of Google Play Store tabs is to help app store visitors find new apps they might like. On that basis, they function in the same way as keywords in the Apple App Store. Therefore, using tags can increase your app store visibility and should be part of your ASO campaign.

Higher conversion in Google Play store pages

App Store visitors see your hashtag in search results. When updating tags, developers can expect "discovery" to have an impact on display counts and downloads. In addition, it's easy to compare tags with competitors' apps. Over time, using the right tags may lead to higher conversion rates and better visibility, which will improve overall app rankings.

Tags can improve app performance by comparing peer groups with your app. Peer Groups provide detailed insight into app ratings, vitals and acquisition data for similar apps or games.

Reach your target audience

Google Play store algorithms also use your tags to reach a more appropriate audience. App stores aim to provide a great shopping experience for their users. That means it's in Google's best interest to help app store visitors find the apps and games that are most relevant to them. 

This is accomplished by collecting and analyzing large amounts of data to match user interests and provide suggestions. That's why the app store algorithm considers all aspects of your item details. the Google Play Store tags are part of these calculations. In other words, the tags you use to describe your app or game help the app store better and more accurately aggregate it with other similar apps. the official statement from Google is: "Tags may affect where your app is displayed on Google Play and the peer group to which you are compared."

How to choose the right tags for Google Play apps

You should not simply choose any tags for your app. If you do this in the wrong way, your app may end up appearing where it shouldn't. Not only that, Google may ignore your app and show competitors simply because you have the wrong tags.

Choose the relevant tags for your app

Google suggests, "You should choose the tags that are most obviously relevant to your app. Users unfamiliar with the app should be very aware of why the tags are relevant, depending on the item details or the initial in-app experience."

I highly recommend that you pay careful attention to this point. Make sure the hashtag you choose is relevant to your app. 

Google gives an example of a multiplayer racing game with vintage cars. It should include the tags "racing" and "racing". These tags obviously reflect the full content of the game.

Just because you can do some stunts in the game doesn't mean you can already have "stunt driving" as your tag. You also don't need to add tags that might apply to related game genres in order to attract similar players. Tags such as "motorcycle racing" or "truck racing" are poor tagging choices.

Don't change it often

Google adds, "We recommend that you only change the app's tags if you make significant changes to the app's content or features, in which case you should re-evaluate your tags to ensure you select the five most relevant."

This basically means that once you've selected the most relevant tag, don't change it unless your app's features and details change dramatically.

How do I add tags?

Adding tags is easy. Here are the steps you should take.

• Open the Playback Console.
• Select the application you want to edit.
• In the left menu, select Development > Store Presence > Store Settings.
• In the Application Categories section, select the application type and category.
• In the same section, select Manage Tags to start selecting and applying tags.
• Select the tags under Suggested Tags to add them. If you think other tags better reflect your app or game, you can find and add them using the search tags, category filters, or by scrolling through the list under "Other Tags".
• Save your changes.

Please note that you can add up to five tags. If you have more than five related tags, select the one that best describes your application. 

Also, you do not need to use all five available tags. It is better to use 2-3 tags that are most relevant to your application, rather than using five tags that will only distort your application grouping.

After setting up your app tags, it can take up to 24 hours for the new tags to show up on the app page.

Automatic tags

In addition, Google can automatically add tags to your app. Interestingly, some of these automatic tags are not even available for developers to choose from in the Google Play console. Some examples include "Offline", "Single Player", and "Stylized". App tagging analysis shows that the average game on Google Play has 4.68 tags. Of these, 2.68 are assigned by Google and cannot be manually selected. The remaining 2 tags are manually selected by developers.

In terms of games, some tags are more popular than others. We would like to point out that the "Casual" tag is present in 11.61% of the applications in the study sample. It is followed by "Arcade" with 9.68%, "Puzzle" with 9.03% and "Action" with 8.39%.