Google has declared new Play Store policies and guidelines intended to make app listings more succinct, accurate, and less of an eyesore.
New guidelines influencing the screenshots and videos intended to show an application’s features and functionality will come into power in the second half of 2021, while specific details regarding the requirement of new policies for application titles, icons, and and descriptions are coming “later this year.”
The new application metadata policies will boycott an variety of tricks that application developers use to make their application listings exorbitantly eye-catching. Writing words in all-caps will presently don’t be permitted except if it’s the name of a brand, and neither one of the wills including emoji for application names.
Application titles will be limited to 30 characters, and they can’t “incentivize installs” by including a phrase like “download now.” Trying to promote deals by including a “Sale” banner in an application icon is additionally being banned.
Google calls the current week’s blog post a “pre-announcement” designed to help designers plan for the forthcoming changes. Notwithstanding, when the policies governing app title, icon, and developer name come into effect, Google says that applications that violate the policies “will not be allowed on Google Play.” It says that more subtleties on the changes will show up later in the year.
Independently, the new guidelines about application preview assets will become effective in the second half of the year. These rules ask that illustrations, recordings, and short depictions “precisely address” applications and games, “provide enough information” to users, don’t use buzzwords like “free” or “best,” and are localized correctly. “Assets that don’t meet our guidelines may be ineligible for promotion and recommendation on major Google Play surfaces like Apps and Games home,” Google says.