Should you put your keyword in your app's title?

“Put your keyword in the title” is the most repeated ASO advice on the web. It is also the most expensive to follow: renaming your app means giving up the recognition you built, breaking word of mouth, and sometimes confusing your existing users. Before paying that price, it is worth knowing what it buys.

We looked at what already-ranked listings actually do. On 23 August 2026, across 30 keywords on the French Play Store, we took the 300 apps in the top 10 and checked, for each one, whether the exact phrase appears in its title.

Most of them do not

So the universal advice does not describe reality: in nearly six cases out of ten, the ranked app does not have the keyword in its name. The title helps, but it is not a toll gate.

More telling still: among ranked listings, 45.6% of positions 1 to 3 carry the keyword in their title, against 40.5% of positions 4 to 10. A five-point gap. So the title is not what separates first place from eighth — once inside the top 10, other signals decide the order.

But the average hides two opposite worlds

That 42% is a misleading average. On 7 of the 30 keywords measured, ZERO apps in the top 10 carry the phrase in their title. On 8 others, it is 80% or more. The distribution has no middle: each keyword falls to one side or the other.

The pattern is sharp: single-word keywords appear in the title of 76% of ranked listings, against 28% for multi-word phrases. “budget”, “vpn”, “weather”, “meditation” are category names — apps claim them. “expense tracking”, “note taking”, “currency converter” describe a function — nobody puts those in their name.

The exceptions confirm the reading: “code de la route” (four words) and “intermittent fasting” (two words) reach 90%, because they too are established category names, not feature descriptions. So it is not length that matters, it is the status of the phrase: category name or description of use.

The opportunity sits exactly where nobody goes

This is the useful reversal in this study. On a category keyword like “budget”, putting the word in your title does not distinguish you: nine competitors out of ten already did it, you are matching at best. On a descriptive phrase like “expense tracking”, nobody in the top 10 has it in their name — and placing it there gives you a signal ten competitors lack.

In other words, the advice “put your keyword in the title” is most useful precisely where it is least applied, and most useless where everyone applies it.

One last, often forgotten number: only 30% of ranked listings place the keyword in their short description — those 80 characters that Google indexes with high weight and that, unlike the name, cost you no recognition to change. It is the most neglected field on the Play Store, and by far the least risky to work on.

What to do, concretely

Before renaming anything, look at the top 10 for your keyword and count how many apps carry it in their title. If it is zero or close, the title is open ground: that is the case that justifies touching your name. If it is eight or nine, changing your name will bring you level without distinguishing you — and you will pay the recognition cost for nothing.

And in every case, start with the short description. It carries weight, it is empty on 70% of ranked listings, and changing it carries no brand cost.

The two other levers are measured here: how many reviews it takes to be visible and the actual density of ranked listings.

Method and limits

300 listings, 30 keywords, French Play Store, 23 August 2026. Title presence requires the whole phrase: “budget” counts for the keyword “budget”, but not for “family budget”. The comparison ignores accents and capitalization.

Like the previous one, this study observes ranked listings; it does not demonstrate causation. The five-point gap between positions 1-3 and 4-10 is in fact small enough that a thirty-keyword sample cannot separate it from chance — we report it as the absence of a visible effect, not as a measured effect.