Google has announced some revisions to the way apps show up in the Google Play Store in an effort to push developers to give more attention to quality and to help users enjoy their apps more. In the announcement from Andrew Ahn, Product Manager with Google Play, he notes the team's efforts should result in helping “people find and discover safe, high quality, useful, and relevant apps.” To make this happen, the Google Play algorithms for search and discovery have been enhanced to incorporate app quality in determining what to display to a user.
To define app quality, Google is looking at items like excessive battery usage, slow render times, and app crashes. Ahn indicates that an analysis that was performed on 1-star reviews of apps showed app stability was mentioned about half the time. Google says the results of the change to the algorithms placed better quality apps in front of end users and resulted in a positive impact on engagement as measured by reductions in uninstalls and increases in actual app usage.
The concept of quality for purposes of the algorithm is not just drawn from user reviews though since that could result in skewed outcomes. Developers can also look at data generated through Android vitals, a new tool announced this past year at Google I/O 2017 that pulls in data from end users who opt in. A pre-launch report can also be used to help identify issues found in alpha and beta testing.
source: Android Developers Blog
