I have a drinking app that i've been developing for the past few years. It's been a ton of work, some days i really wondered why i kept putting in the hours. Lately as the app has inched its way near the top of drinking games on the App Store, i can definitely say the long journey has been worth it.
When i first launched it, i made some experiments advertising it with Search Ads. It was a fairly meh experience, i think my revenue model at the time wasn't that well thought-out, but i managed to learn some things.
Fast-forward to about a year after i first used Search Ads, i noticed that i wasn't able to renew or create any new campaigns for my app anymore. I didn't receive any notification from Apple saying i had done something wrong, i hadn't changed anything about the apps content structure, the app was simply "banned".
After many attempts at reaching out to the Search Ads support, the canned response they always gave me can be summarized as: "We can't tell you why, you should read our guidelines". After weeks of back and forth i was able to squeeze some information out of on representative, a single paragraph that contained the line: "We suggest reviewing the "Controlled Substances" section under Prohibited Content and "Alcohol Content" under Restricted Content."
The app does not promote excessive drinking, or facilitate the use of drugs what so ever. The app doesn't even mention the word Alcohol. What makes this even more frustrating is that other apps in this category seem to have no issue promoting themselves using Search Ads. Here's a comparison of the metadata between a competitor currently using Search Ads to appear when a user searches the specific name of my app, and mine.
The other app:
- Age Rating 17+
- Frequent/Intense Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References
- Frequent/Intense Profanity or Crude Humor
- Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes
- Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity
- Infrequent/Mild Medical/Treatment Information
- Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes
My app:
- Age Rating 17+
- Frequent/Intense Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References
- Infrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude Humor
- Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes
- Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content and Nudity
Neither the Search Ads support, or the Apple Developer Support will discuss under any circumstance what element in the app breaks their guidelines, what i can do to resolve the issue, or how other apps with more hardcore metadata is compliant with their policies and mine isn't.
I've run out of ideas how to resolve this. How do you think i should proceed?
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from Search Engine Optimization: The Latest SEO News https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/e1kwr0/app_was_shadow_banned_from_apple_search_ads/>
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