Why is Chrome Webstore search so bad?

[George Mike]

In my experience, searching through the webstore yields inexplicable results. 

For example, searching "airtable" (https://chromewebstore.google.com/search/airtable) results in 4 of the top 6 results:

- Not mentioning Airtable at all

- Not being related to Airtable or data / databases / spreadsheets

- Seemingly mostly the same extension from the same developer

I'd like this to be more than a rant, so:

- Does this make sense?

- What are the factors we can use to improve the ranking of our extensions if not users/ratings/keywords?

- Is there any plan to improve search? 

[Browser Extenstion]

I completely agree.
I couldn't find any extensions, even when entering the full extension name.
At the same time, search results are displayed that are not related to the query at all.

[Roberto Oneto]

Maybe it's not exactly the same thing, but have you ever tried to do a search on Google with and without cookies enabled?

The Google search engine first highlights the results of advertisers (i.e. those who sell something and buy advertising space from big G).

Secondly, then come the results that have more relevance to the normal life preferences that we disseminate every day on the web. These "preferences" are always extrapolated from navigation cookies. This is no mystery and obviously Big G has very sophisticated algorithms that it has never shared (especially due to competition from other search engines).

As for the CWS, it's more or less the same thing, in the sense that the extensions with the most ratings (stars) are highlighted first. So if you have 1000 friends on Facebook and you convince each of these friends to give you 5 stars on one of your extensions, and then these friends do the same thing with their other friends, your extension will pop up at the top of every search result even if, at equal performance, there are 100 other similar extensions (perhaps more valid and beautiful) which will appear only after much scrolling down the page.

i.e. You have an extension called "pear" which has never had a rating (either positive or negative) and when you search for it in the store apples, bananas, cherries will appear and only very far down this list will "pear" appear.

However, I noticed that if the name of the extension is written in full, it appears on the first page.

I then have the impression that 90% of extension users actually give an evaluation to an extension when it is not at all (or partially) up to expectations, while when an extension has no bugs and works perfectly they forget to give 4/5 stars even after using it (and therefore testing it) for several years. A bit like when you go to eat at a restaurant. If you eat well and the service is good you don't talk about it to anyone, but if you ate like crap or they treated you badly you talk about it with all your friends, colleagues and even write a negative review.

I don't live for stars and likes, but I still think that the system needs to be reviewed a bit; that's all

[WA Messager]

+1 on this, 
even after writing the exact name of my extension, it's coming in 2nd position in search results while some other extensions that do not have that keyword anywhere, neither title nor description is coming on top.
I understand that Google might show best-suited results based on query intent but this is not happening in the case of CWS search results, I have noticed this for more than a year and was hoping that the CWS team would improve their search results in their next version but this is not the case till now.
I've checked in the new CWS store, and though their search suggestion is now better and shows relevant extensions on top, still after clicking on the search they are showing the same sequence as the old Chrome web store, maybe they are using the same search algorithm for this as well.

And I completely agree with @George here that the irrelevant extensions are mostly of the same developer, it seems like they have found some loophole to rank their extension without being relevant to the search query.

I would request the team to have a look at this and maybe improvise on this in the next update.

[gl...@detailed.com]

I also started a thread on this a few weeks ago. It's super frustrating.

Even worse now with the new store design rolling out, it means relevant extensions are hidden behind the 'load more' button. 

[Patrick Kettner]

Hello Everyone,

Thank you so much for all of the messages here. We really appreciate it. We shared what was said here with the Chrome Web Store team, and they wanted to share this response.

Thank you for your insightful feedback regarding the Chrome Web Store  search functionality. We are aware of your concerns about extension visibility and ranking within search results. Please know that we take this feedback seriously and are actively reviewing the issues raised. Your experiences are instrumental in guiding our ongoing efforts to improve the store.

We value your continued engagement and welcome any further suggestions you may have. Together, we can work towards making the Chrome Web Store a better platform for developers and users alike.

[Saf Dar]

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[Ch Ext]

Let me tell you exactly why the chrome store search is so bad. The reason is keyword spamming in different languages.

To use the same example as the initial email, lets use the keyword 'Airtable'. All the extension that are not relevant in the result are spamming. To give an example from the initial screenshot by
g...@georgemike.com

Extension 1: NoteGPT: YouTube Summart with ChatGPT & Notes:
They have stuffed the keyword airtable into the arabic and other langugage version of the extension. You can find it by going to https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/youtube-summary-with-chat/baecjmoceaobpnffgnlkloccenkoibbb?hl=ar and searching page for keyword 'airtable'

Extension 2: Unlimited Summary Generator for YouTube:
They have stuffed the keyword 'airtable' to the danish version of the extension. You can find it by going to this link and searching for keyword airtable: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/chatgpt-for-youtube-video/eelolnalmpdjemddgmpnmobdhnglfpje?hl=da

You can similarly search for other results that are not relevant, in every case it is language spamming.

This is very common and the reason why chrome store search is broken, in fact it is the main reason.

There was also a major bug with language title and description which I had reported under 7-1505000035826 which allowed people to spam more. I reported this 3 weeks ago, I see that that is still not taken care of? Can the chrome store team give an update on what will be done about this and what has been done till now? This is a very high priority issue.

[hrg...@gmail.com]

It looks like the CWS staff has plenty of time for changing purely cosmetic aspects of the store, but no time at all for overseeing the content quality.

Did they forget that most people in the world do not speak english...