In a blog post, Google announced that it is altering its search and discovery algorithms so that high-performing apps rank higher than low-performing apps. The performance ranking takes into consideration crash rates, battery consumption, uninstall rates and render times. According to the company, about half of one-star reviews cite app stability as a reason for the poor review.
Google already began quietly testing the feature with a small group of users and found that engagement went up as a result. It plans to roll it out to everyone over the next several days.