Free App Store keyword research tool.

Start App Store keyword research with a product task

Write what someone needs to do with your app in their own words. A fictional walking notebook might save route notes, organize past walks or reopen a journal entry offline. Those are different tasks. Choose one supported task and one intended storefront before exploring a phrase. A broad word such as travel can mix many unrelated products; a phrase such as walk journal gives you a narrower question to investigate.

Read the returned names and categories as a small discovery sample. Open a relevant listing and ask which task it promises, who it appears to serve and what makes your own app different. Keep your observations in the keyword research worksheet. A result appearing here is a reason to inspect it, not evidence that its wording belongs in your keyword field.

Keep storefronts and language assumptions explicit

The selected country is passed to Apple’s search endpoint. It does not make the sample equivalent to the personalized results someone sees on their device. The API’s default response language is English; choosing a country does not establish that every returned name is localized to that market. Record the phrase, storefront and fetched timestamp beside your observations so you can compare the same request later.

Try a phrase that fits the intended audience, then inspect the actual store listing and localized experience. A fictional bilingual notebook might use an English research phrase first, then review a Turkish phrase with a fluent reader. The reader’s explanation of the task is more useful than treating a translated word as a proven search opportunity. Record missing language or relevance evidence as an open question.

Separate a public sample from ranking and demand

The API returns a limited sample. Result order is not an App Store rank, and this explorer does not access search-volume, popularity or difficulty data. An empty response does not establish an uncontested market. A name that appears in several searches does not establish that people search those phrases. If you have authorized demand or search-performance evidence, record its provider, date, territory and method separately in the worksheet.

Use “Inspect public name” to send the chosen listing to our metadata checker. It can import that app’s public name and a description excerpt; it does not reveal private keywords or verify ownership. Apple advises against using competing app names in your keyword field. Use another app to understand a task and audience, then choose relevant terms that describe your own supported features.

Turn an observation into a draft you can check

For the fictional walking notebook, suppose an inspected listing suggests route planning while your app only saves notes after a walk. Keep planning out of the draft unless the released build supports it. Record the difference, choose a truthful task phrase and review your own name, subtitle and keywords in the free metadata checker. Counts and repeated-word checks help use field space; they do not predict search performance.

Then test whether a new person can complete the promised action. Save their expectation, device, build and observation in a focused testing brief. This gives the team a concrete reason to keep or revise a phrase. Preserve product observations separately from store acquisition reports and voluntary public ratings so the next review can identify what the evidence actually shows.

When public search is unavailable

Apple’s API can be unavailable, return no records or limit requests. Our explorer also limits new requests to protect the service and reuses recently fetched public records. If it reports that search is busy, wait a minute and try again. The worksheet and manual metadata checker remain available. We keep the requested storefront and never substitute another market to manufacture a result.

Published October 5, 2026. Sources checked: Apple’s archived Search API reference and Apple product-page and keyword guidance. The public endpoint was tested at publication; the archived documentation is not a guarantee of future availability.

Using the keyword explorer