A Google Play store listing checklist from Google's own rules

Most Google Play store listing advice is iOS advice with the nouns swapped. It tells you to pick a hundred characters of keywords, which Play does not have. It tells you to test your screenshots, but not that Play's testing tool has rules that decide whether a test ever returns an answer. And it says nothing about the two listing structures that only exist on Play.

This Google Play store listing checklist is built the other way round. It starts from what Google states in Play Console Help, and adds the Play-specific mechanics most cross-platform checklists skip.

Google Play store listing fields and their stated limits

Play gives you three text fields on the default store listing. Play Console Help states their limits (Create and set up your app):

There is no keyword field. The description is the text surface. Google's guidance about it is a warning, not a technique: "Repetitive or irrelevant use of keywords in the app name, description, or promotional description can create an unpleasant user experience and result in an app being suspended on Google Play" (Create and set up your app).

Google's best-practices page adds prohibitions that disqualify a lot of common listing copy (Best practices for your store listing):

• No unattributed or anonymous user testimonials.
• No text indicating store performance or ranking. Google's own examples are "App of the year," "#1," "Best of Play 20XX," "Popular," and award icons.
• No deal language in app titles, such as "Free" or "No Ads."
• No CAPS "unless your brand is capitalized," and avoid "emojis, emoticons, and special character sequences that are irrelevant to your app."
• The description must accurately describe the app's functionality and content.

Treat that list as a pre-submission read-through rather than as style advice. Google states the suspension consequence narrowly, for "repetitive or irrelevant use of keywords" (Create and set up your app). The best-practices items above are the house rules your listing is read against. There is no upside in breaking them.

The assets are a specification, not a taste question

Play states exact requirements for preview assets (Add preview assets to showcase your app):

• App icon — 512 × 512 px PNG.
• Feature graphic — 1024 × 500 px.
• Screenshots — up to 8 per device type, with stated aspect ratio requirements.
• Preview video — supplied as a YouTube URL, with monetisation disabled.
• TV banner — 1280 × 720 px, for Android TV.

Two things follow. First, "up to 8 per device type" means a tablet or TV listing is a separate asset job, not a resize. Second, because assets can be localised, they are a per-market decision, not a global one.

Three Play-only levers most checklists skip

1. Custom store listings target segments, not languages

You can create up to 50 custom store listing pages. Each can change "your app's name, icon, descriptions, and graphic assets" (Create custom store listings). Targeting is not limited to geography. Google names install-state segments. Churned users have uninstalled your app. Lapsed users have not opened it in the last 28 days. Buyer categories and users eligible to pre-register are options too.

One constraint governs how you plan them: "You can target multiple countries with a custom store listing, but you can only target a country with one custom store listing at a time." So a country cannot run two listing strategies at once. A country is a slot, and you choose what occupies it.

2. Language localisation and country targeting are different tools

This is the distinction that causes the most wasted work. Google says it directly: "Store listing localization is one of two ways that Play Console can help you deliver differentiated experiences to users in different locations. To deliver different store listings by country/region (versus language), we recommend creating custom store listings" (Translate and localize your app).

The same page notes that where you have not supplied a translation, automated translations are displayed with a notification. The exceptions are Armenian, Raeto-romance, Tagalog and Zulu, where automated translations are not available. That has a measurement consequence people rarely account for. In markets where you shipped nothing, users may still see some version of your listing. Its performance is not a clean read on your copy.

3. The A/B testing tool has rules that decide whether you get an answer

Play's store listing experiments let you "run experiments to find the most effective graphics and text for your app" (Run A/B tests). The operating constraints matter more than the feature description:

• Two experiment types. Default graphics experiments cover the icon, feature graphic and screenshots in your default listing language. Localized experiments additionally cover descriptions, in up to five languages.
• Concurrency: "For each app, you can run one default graphics experiment or up to five localized experiments at the same time."
• Up to 2 variants tested against the current listing.
• Audience percentage sets the share of visitors who see a variant. Those visitors "will be split equally across your experimental variants."
• Metrics are unique user install clicks, open clicks and pre-registration clicks — click-level outcomes, not retention or revenue.
• Experiments stop automatically after 6 months.
• A "More data needed" result is a real outcome. Google notes that adjusting confidence level and minimum detectable effect "can make your experiment run for longer before providing useful results."

The practical reading: a low-traffic listing testing two variants at a small audience percentage will often prove nothing. The honest response is to test a bigger visual difference, not to squint at an inconclusive result.

Ordering the work

Given all of the above, the sequence that wastes least effort is:

1. Clear the policy gate first. Run the title and description against Google's prohibitions list. A suspension resets everything else to zero.
2. Complete the asset set for every device type you actually ship to, at spec. This is the cheapest fix with the clearest failure condition.
3. Write the short description as the only text most people read. Eighty characters, describing the functionality, in plain language.
4. Rewrite the full description for a reader, not a parser. Google's discoverability guidance tells you to "use SEO best practices in your 'Description,' but be mindful of the Google Play Content Policies regarding spam and IP Infringement (for example, keyword spamming, impersonation, etc.)" (Get discovered on Google Play search).
5. Then, and only then, structure by segment. Decide which countries deserve a custom store listing. Decide which languages deserve a real translation rather than the automated fallback.
6. Test one big change at a time, sized so the experiment can actually resolve.

What Google will not tell you, and what to do instead

Google names ratings, reviews and downloads as ranking inputs and then explicitly withholds the weights. No amount of reading will close that gap. The only honest source of truth about your listing is your listing. That means keeping a change log: what changed, when, and in which country. Keep it next to the ranks and conversion figures you observed before and after. Without the dates, a listing's history becomes folklore within a quarter.

ASOClimb covers this ground through the Keywords Tracker, the Keywords Inspector and Competitors Analysis. Wherever the record lives, keep what you observed separate from what you concluded. The same discipline makes rank comparisons across countries meaningful.

A Play listing is not an iOS listing with fewer fields. A Google Play store listing has its own segmentation model, its own asset spec and its own testing tool. Your checklist should be rebuilt around that.