---
title: Checking keyword difficulty by reading the actual search results
slug: aso-keyword-difficulty-manual-check
summary: How to verify an ASO tool's difficulty score by searching the App Store yourself — count ratings of top results and check whether they carry the keyword in their title.
domain: mobile-apps
tags: [aso, keyword-difficulty, competitor-research]
related: [aso-keyword-selection-criteria, aso-competitor-keyword-mining, app-idea-tentacle-strategy]
sources: [yt:cq6KhOH6GAw, yt:bV5_OwDB35o]
updated: 2026-10-23
---

# Checking keyword difficulty by reading the actual search results

## TL;DR
- After the tool says "low difficulty", **search the keyword in the App Store** and look at the top ~7 results.[^1]
- Two signals: **ratings count** of each ranking app (proxy for revenue and downloads) and **whether the keyword is in its title**.[^1][^2]
- **Many ratings + keyword in title = skip.** E.g. "sleep sounds": a top app has 205,000 ratings and "sleep sounds" in its title.[^2]
- **Low ratings and few exact-title matches = go.** "Brown noise": #1 had ~645 ratings, #7 only 11, few apps with it in the title.[^1]
- Tools can be wrong in both directions — one client keyword the tool flagged as competitive had no app with it in the title and hit #1 at launch.[^3]

## Details
Procedure from Steve P. Young's August 2026 walkthrough:

1. Take a candidate from the tool (e.g. "brown noise": search score 35, ASOMobile complexity 2.5, i.e. under his threshold of 3).[^1]
2. Search it on an iPhone. For each top result note the ratings count and whether the exact phrase is in the app name.[^1]
3. Judge: an app with hundreds of thousands of ratings *and* the term in its title will be rewarded by Apple — "you're probably not going to beat them".[^2] A spread of small apps (hundreds or tens of ratings) means a new app can realistically reach #1.[^1]
4. Sanity-check famous brands too: Endel targets "focus" and "sleep sounds" in its title but does not rank #1 for either — the big player isn't safe on head terms either.[^4]

**Spotting beatable leaders.** When an app with few ratings ranks well among giants, study it. In the "calorie tracker" results, Calorie AI ranked with ~4,000 ratings next to MyFitnessPal (2.1M), Lose It (700K) and Cal AI (200K) — a sign the term rewards metadata more than brand size, and a good app to mine for keywords ([[aso-competitor-keyword-mining]]).[^5]

## Disagreements / caveats
- Ratings are a proxy, not a ranking input you can see directly; Steve uses them because they correlate with revenue and downloads.[^2]

## See also
- [[aso-keyword-selection-criteria]]
- [[app-idea-tentacle-strategy]] — the same check decides whether to build an app at all

[^1]: yt:cq6KhOH6GAw @ 09:49 — Steve P. Young
[^2]: yt:cq6KhOH6GAw @ 11:29 — Steve P. Young
[^3]: yt:cq6KhOH6GAw @ 14:59 — Steve P. Young
[^4]: yt:cq6KhOH6GAw @ 10:40 — Steve P. Young
[^5]: yt:bV5_OwDB35o @ 05:38 — Steve P. Young