Developers report a moment of upside-down app rankings, now returning to normal

It seems to be back to status quo ante now, and we're not sure exactly what was going on, but something apparently slipped off the crazy shelf and whacked the App Store firmly in the noggin. Multiple users and developers emailed to let us know that the Top Paid rankings in the store were completely jumbled up, with unfamiliar apps taking over the rankings from long-standing champs. iGlowStickPro? 301+ Short Stories? That ain't right.

The US store was definitely fritzy, but other tipsters report that the Australian store was affected as well. Now that things seem to be returning to normal, it's interesting to note how quickly everyone reacted to send a heads-up about the problem... when your monthly revenues depend on that Top Paid ranking slot, even a few minutes of confusion will get your attention in a hurry.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

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Source: http://itunes.com/

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It seems to be back to status quo ante now, and we're not sure exactly what was going on, but something apparently slipped off the crazy...

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wize100

i see the problem as well if you are accessing the app store on 3G, if you switch to wifi, the ranking is fine.

So depending how you access the app store, it looks like it points you to different servers.

November 05 2009 at 3:13 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

matej.knopp

Yep, it's broken again. And it seems to be broken in every AppStore out there.

November 05 2009 at 2:00 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Justin

Hmm, happening again today. D'oh!

November 05 2009 at 11:52 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Adrian vG

How do you know iGlowstick isn't the most popular one? Don't insult the author :'(

November 05 2009 at 8:14 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

BMW

It also appears that the rankings have 'frozen' to their pre-App Store crash levels, at least for third-party rank analysis tools.

Tools like Applyzer.com and MajicRank have reported no movement up or down for any apps worldwide since the hour of the App Store crash. As we all now, there is hourly App-ranking movement all the time somewhere in the world.

November 05 2009 at 1:36 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

WezUwiUsz

Apple 'Marix' :) has been changed... Release date trick doesn't work anymore as well.

November 04 2009 at 10:43 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

mabhatter

Somebody was using the Bozo sort to make those top spots more visible.

If the top spot is really that important, then Apple should put any 10 random apps on the same page as the top ten by downloads... if being in a certain spot is so important (and iPhone app buyers so gullible), everybody should get a shot!

November 04 2009 at 10:29 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Martin

I have five bars. No chip on the shoulder though. All out of those.

November 04 2009 at 8:43 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply