Keyword Difficulty Checker
Estimate how hard it is to rank for any App Store keyword before you spend metadata space on it.
Every keyword has two sides: how many people search it, and how hard it is to appear when they do. Difficulty is the side most indie developers skip — and it is why so many apps target “photo editor” and end up buried on page four. This checker estimates difficulty by examining the apps currently ranking for the term: how many ratings they have, how established they are, and how tightly their metadata matches the query.
Enter a keyword above to get its difficulty estimate. Pair it with the popularity score and you have the two numbers every keyword decision should rest on.
How to check keyword difficulty
- 1
Enter the keyword you are considering into the field above.
- 2
Select the storefront — difficulty is country-specific because the competing apps differ per market.
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Review the difficulty estimate alongside the top-ranking apps behind it: heavyweight incumbents with millions of ratings mean a hard fight, while a results page of small or loosely-matching apps signals opportunity.
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Compare difficulty against popularity: the keywords worth targeting are the ones where demand is real but the current top results are beatable.
How keyword difficulty is estimated
Unlike popularity, Apple publishes no official difficulty metric — it has to be derived from what the search results reveal. The strongest signals are the credentials of the apps ranking in the top positions: their rating counts (a proxy for install base), their average ratings, how long they have held their positions, and whether the keyword appears verbatim in their titles and subtitles. A results page where every top app has six-figure rating counts and the exact keyword in its title is a fortress; one filled with partial matches and low-rating apps is an open door.
This is also why difficulty and popularity often correlate but do not have to. High-popularity generic terms are usually saturated, but pockets exist — newly emerging search terms, misspellings people genuinely type, and phrasings that established players have not added to their metadata yet. Those gaps are where smaller apps win rankings.
Choosing keywords by the popularity-to-difficulty ratio
The core discipline of keyword selection is refusing to evaluate either number alone. A popularity-80 keyword with fortress-level difficulty will send you zero visits from position 40; a popularity-18 keyword you can rank #2 for sends real installs every day. Most successful ASO strategies for non-incumbent apps are built on a portfolio of these mid-tail wins rather than a single moonshot term.
Difficulty should also inform where a keyword goes in your metadata. Apple weighs the app name most heavily, then the subtitle, then the hidden keyword field. Spend your title characters on the hardest keyword you realistically can win — that is where the extra ranking weight changes the outcome — and park easier terms in the subtitle and keyword field, where less weight is still enough to rank.
Frequently asked questions
How is App Store keyword difficulty calculated?
Apple publishes no official difficulty number, so it is estimated from the strength of the apps currently ranking for the term — their rating counts, average ratings, how closely their titles and subtitles match the keyword, and how entrenched the top positions look. Stronger incumbents mean a higher difficulty score.
What difficulty level should a new app target?
New apps with few ratings should hunt for keywords where the current top results are weak: apps with modest rating counts or only partial keyword matches. As your app accumulates ratings and download velocity, you can progressively contest harder terms. Trying to out-rank category leaders on day one wastes your most valuable metadata slots.
Is a low-difficulty keyword always worth targeting?
Only if people actually search it. Plenty of keywords are easy precisely because they have no demand. Always cross-check difficulty against the popularity score — the target zone is real demand plus beatable competition, not just an empty results page.
Does difficulty change over time?
Constantly. Competitors update metadata, new apps launch, and Apple adjusts its algorithm. A keyword that was contested last year may open up when an incumbent pivots, and an easy keyword can close overnight when a well-rated app adds it to its title. Periodic re-checks keep your keyword map current.
Why is the same keyword harder in one country than another?
Because the competing apps differ per storefront. A fitness keyword dominated by US incumbents may have far weaker competition in Brazil or Turkey, where fewer strong local apps target it. Checking difficulty per market often reveals countries where ranking is dramatically easier.
Score every keyword before you commit metadata to it
Appalize combines live popularity, difficulty, and daily rank tracking in one workspace, so you can build a keyword portfolio around terms you can actually win.
Related free tools
Keyword Popularity Checker
Look up any keyword’s real App Store popularity score on Apple’s 5–100 scale.
Keyword Rank Checker
Search any keyword like a user would and see exactly where your app ranks in the results.
Competitor Keyword Extractor
Pull the keywords any competitor is targeting straight out of their visible App Store metadata.
Long-Tail Keyword Generator
Combine your seed keywords with proven modifiers and question patterns to generate long-tail candidates instantly.