The App Store and Play Market statistics show that the number of applications getting banned is growing daily, and every developer is faced with the fact that the project they worked hard on and put their whole effort into has been banned. We have personally experienced this problem from popular mobile platforms and know what to do about it. But first, you need to understand the reasons for the ban.
Reasons for a ban from the App Store and Play Market
An application can be banned for many reasons, but let's consider the reasons associated with the application code.
Similar/copied/duplicated source code, the main reason for blocking accounts or applications. Such a code gets to you if you use the services of freelancers. Most often, such developers simply copy/download the code for their customers to give it away and get paid faster. Another way is the company uses the services of one programmer and he makes changes to the source using his style. Therefore, one code is practically no different from another, and the algorithms of mobile platforms pay attention to this and read it as plagiarism.
Multi-accounting is another popular reason for a ban. Multi-accounting - the ability to register multiple accounts, one user on one platform. For example, a company/developer releases similar applications, so that they can reach mobile platforms faster, they use different accounts for this. You can link these accounts responsibly according to different criteria, but the most common reason is the same code. That is, the written code of the new application is similar to the code that the company/developer has already released using the second account. The App Store and Play Market do not welcome such actions, since most often they violate the policies of their companies, which leads to a ban. Because, on their part, it is considered copied/duplicated code.
To eliminate the causes of the ban, companies or developers use code refactoring and obfuscation. That is, they analyze it and work on the uniqueness, quality, and purity of the code, each stage requires a lot of attention. This is how a large resource of time and invested finances is spent on projects that were not originally calculated.
Personal experience - avoiding a ban!
Our team has been working since 2012 to create mobile applications for the App Store and Play Market. In the process of creation, we use modern technologies, a special approach, and different types of tasks. At one point in 2017, our apps started getting banned due to multi-accounting, over 50 accounts and 1500 apps were banned in 3 minutes.
The whole problem was in the source code, or rather its identity, we began to solve the problem manually, refactoring and obfuscating the code ourselves. So we worked for several years, but all this time it took too much time for these tasks. Manual refactoring and obfuscation could take from 2-3 days, and sometimes it took as much time as it takes to create a new application. This hurt the timing of orders and the cost of production of the application.
Using these methods, we worked until we received a new ban, which was again linked to the source of the application. In 2019, the number of applications that got banned was more than 400. The problem was not solved, and we realized that we needed a tool to work with the code, analyze it, and which would be completely automatic. Because our team creates a large number of different projects, there is simply no way to remember everything.
Taking experience as a basis, understanding the problems that may be encountered. We started creating our tool that will help with the analysis of the source code to see how it matches with the base of finished applications at the initial stage. The ability to compare between applications helps to eliminate the likelihood of getting banned up to 90% from IOS and Android when replacing the structure of identical files, methods, and variables. Plus, these factors are supplemented by the algorithms of the App Store and Play Market, which do not stand still, and every time you have to find new options for creating applications to meet the requirements.
This is how the history of the service began, we have been working on it since 2020 and improving its capabilities every day. When we had confidence in its reliability and stability, we decided to open access to other users. Because we understand that we are not the only ones who have similar problems when creating applications. Your AppRefactoring can personally get acquainted with our tool ”.
Bottom line: By choosing manual code refactoring, you are helping your applications, but you are wasting a lot of resources. This process should be a stable part of the work, so for convenience, it is worth using the tool -“AppRefactoring”, in one click, the robot analyzes the source code, shows the mistakes made and can compare with your personal or team projects (if you are not working alone). The result shows the percentage of code uniqueness and qualitative analysis, you can save personal and team resources (time, money, as well as nerves).
Be sure to share your cases in the comments, we need to learn about the experience of each reader! Plus it can be a good example for others!
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