Hey, this is the Daily Overpass! My name is Eric and I make apps!
Now today, let's talk about rejected, removed and suspended apps in the Google Play Console.
Okay, so today, I want to answer a question that came in last week from
Isaac Balintuma who said, "Make a video about what rejected, removed and
suspended mean and when they appear on an app in the Developer Console and the
three-strikes policy by Google." So, most of this stuff you could probably look up,
If you look at the policies of Google Play. But just to go, I've had all three
of these statuses on apps over the years. I've had rejected, I've had removed and
I've had suspended. Suspended by far is the worst. So rejected, I've had an app
rejected - it was sort of some technical reason. I can't remember what it was. I
uploaded a binary and for some reason, they just - it was rejected for including
some library or something like that. Or maybe it didn't - it didn't cater for
something, but it was such a simple thing. It was so quick that all I had to do was
upload another version like within a few hours this is rejected. There was some
problem with the binary. You have to upload it again which I didn't even know
Google Play checked for. But it only happened to me one time. I've had apps
removed for not filling in the policies. I had like a really old
application and they gave you all that time to go through and fill in the
questionnaire to give it a rating. And I hadn't done that so it was removed.
So, all I had to do was upload it again and make and republish it. No big deal.
And I've had app suspended. Suspended is by far the worst and when I had my one
app suspended, I appealed it and then I appealed it again and they put it back.
They didn't just make it published again. They actually set it to a status of
removed and I had to upload a new binary. So it's - so removed is much better
than suspended, suspended that stays there all the time like that. Let's
talk about the three-strikes Developer Policy or the three-strikes policy by
Google. This is something I hear about a lot but I can't find any documentation
on it. It's one of a strange thing, so I wanted to ask you, guys, because we've
been looking through the Google Play policy and I haven't found anything
about a three-strike policy. YouTube has a three-strike policy but I haven't seen
anything on the Google Play Developer policy and I'm wondering if that's just
a myth. If that's something that - because when someone told me about it, I thought,
"Oh, I gotta be careful, but I didn't read it in the documentation. It was just
somebody had told me that this three-strike policy and then you're out."
And you know, and I've actually had more than three-strikes, but
when I looked at the documentation that says just make sure that your
account is in good - your developer account is in good standing, which is a
very vague language. And maybe, it has to do with the amount of apps and
everything like that. So, I haven't seen anything in - and we've looked through
the policy, I got someone else to check to and say, "Yeah, I
don't see anything in there about a three-strike policy, do you?" So, I could be
wrong, but I'm wondering whether or not that's even true. If that's a
myth or not. So, I hope that helps a little bit, Isaac. You don't want
to get suspended. I've had three, I've had four suspensions. One of them was
overturned and you know, it was terrible. So, it was, you know, you
can't do anything with the suspension. You came and remove it from the Google
Play Console. It's always there. It's just there staring back at you and
if you're lucky, if you get it appealed to put it back to remove, you upload a
new binary, everything is good. So, hopefully that helps you, guys, a
little bit there. Let me know if you, guys - if you know something about the Google
Play three-strike policy that I don't. Like whether it exists or not, or you
know, where the documentation is on it. If that documentation is up-to-date, I'd
really be interested to know because I couldn't find anything on it. And that is
it for today. I'll talk to you, guys, again tomorrow.