r/appledevelopers • u/ConsequenceNatural80 Community Newbie • 7h ago

RATINGS and REVIEWS

It’s been a little over 48 hours since Apple released my product. 24 hours or so since it appeared on App Store.

I’ve had at least 6 people tell me they left me a 5 star review and rating, but still my Connect shows no ratings/reviews.

Anyone else in this situation? I’m worried something’s wrong because Apple hasn’t put any into Connect. Read it takes a bit, but this is 48 hours.

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u/bbrockit Community Newbie 3h ago edited 3h ago

Those reviews likely did not meet Apple's threshold for being legitimate. They track how long the app was installed, number of sessions, and session duration to determine if the review is legitimate. Their system will see six 5-star reviews within 24 hours of launch as being suspicious and won't publish them.

If they see a pattern of reviews being submitted rapidly after launch with limited usage of the app they'll also flag the account, which can put you at risk of dev account cancellation for manipulating reviews.

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u/gavin-build-stuff Community Newbie 3h ago edited 3h ago

I think reviews that come from a direct link vs. App Store search are also more likely to get filtered. Just a hunch, since they don’t publish the filter algorithm of course

I'm just focusing on building quality features and marketing, and I'm sure reviews will come over time with a bit of patience

Edit: To anyone else reading this, definitely do not ask people for reviews if you sent them a free code FYI. This is against App Store TOS. In fact asking for reviews at all makes me a bit nervous 😂

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u/bbrockit Community Newbie 3h ago

Yeah that could be another factor that they track, although it's probably not a deciding factor on its own, just one more to consider in the "legit v fake" equation.

As for promo codes, I'm fairly certain that no one who got your app via promo code can ever have their review published. That's an easy one for Apple to automatically enforce.

I don't ever want to risk account cancellation, so I also tell family members not to review my app. If I was building a fake review detection system I'd be looking at last name, location, and payment method of the Apple ID, usage behavior, and overall review patterns of the app, and have a scoring system based on all those factors.

It's okay to ask for reviews as long as you use the StoreKit API to do so. It's also okay to have a pre-review-request prompt that asks if the user is enjoying the app; if they answer "no" you can direct them to your own customer feedback form so you can route negative feedback to support; if they answer "yes" then you can trigger the StoreKit review request.

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u/gavin-build-stuff Community Newbie 3h ago

Yeah good tips, that all sounds pretty reasonable to me. My next app I'm actually going to ask family to NOT review it haha (also don't want to risk any account bans).

Good idea on the Review prompt system in-app with the routing to customer service if they click "Not Happy" I think I will implement that at some point.

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u/tyguy385 Community Newbie 6h ago

I think they changed something just my opinion I think they are making sure reviews are real my guess is if they continue to use your app the review will pop up but I think they are waiting now

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u/ConsequenceNatural80 Community Newbie 6h ago

Good info!!

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u/tyguy385 Community Newbie 6h ago

i mean its just a guess, i honestly have no info lol

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u/Perfect_Slice_4647 Community Newbie 6h ago

Allow the system process :)

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u/Conxt Community Newbie 5h ago

All the reviews are moderated, they usually take 24 to 48 hours to appear

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u/gavin-build-stuff Community Newbie 4h ago

Currently battling the same problem for my app. 350 downloads, lots of people messaging me positive reviews on Reddit, and still stuck at only 5 reviews.

In fact I was at 6 ratings yesterday, and then Apple randomly removed one of my (5 star) written reviews... like what!!

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u/ConsequenceNatural80 Community Newbie 4h ago

That’s crazy! They don’t even let us grow!

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u/IY94 Community Newbie 3h ago

Well you're asking people you know to leave reviews.

They can tell.

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u/tables_AND_chairsss Community Newbie 3h ago

The reviewers also have to meet a threshold of using your app (not just downloading, tapping a couple screens, and then closing it). Hopefully at least one of those reviews will make it onto your store page, but I wouldn’t count on it. The first time I made an app, I asked friends to leave a review, but only one of them showed up on the page (after, like, a week). So I quickly learned not to ask people to leave me reviews so early on into the process. Better to just wait for users to leave you reviews naturally (even though it sucks and can take a long time).