For most indie iOS apps, one check per keyword per night is enough to see what's happening, and you only need to look at the results once a week to make decisions. Check more closely, daily, in the two weeks after a metadata update, so you can see when new words start ranking. Checking every hour mostly shows noise. This is a different question from how often App Store rankings update: Apple doesn't publish an update schedule, so the useful habit is a steady series of checks you can compare.
A simple schedule
| Situation | How often to collect ranks | How often to look and act |
|---|---|---|
| Steady state, no recent changes | Every night | Once a week |
| First two weeks after a subtitle or keyword field change | Every night | Every day or two, to see when new words appear |
| New keyword you're testing | As soon as you add it, then nightly | After a week of data |
| New country or localization | Nightly in that storefront | Weekly; each country ranks separately (by country) |
Separate collecting from reacting
The mistake isn't checking too often; it's rewriting metadata after a single bad day. Keep collecting every night so the history is complete, and decide on the trend over at least a week. TrackASO's weekly plan works the same way: keywords changed in the last 7 days wait before being judged (llms-full.txt).
Why more often rarely helps indie apps
- Small apps rarely jump by large amounts hour to hour; the signal you act on is a trend.
- Every manual check costs time. Ten keywords in three countries is thirty App Store searches.
- Two tools that check at different times can show different positions for the same day.
Why less often can hurt
If you check only once a month, you can't tell which update moved a keyword, and you can miss a competitor that changed its subtitle and took your spot. Nightly history with markers for name, subtitle, icon and version changes makes that link visible (competitor keyword tracking).
How to do it without leaving your Mac on
You can search the App Store by hand on a phone, or use a tracker. TrackASO checks every tracked keyword every night in the cloud (around 03:00 local time in each country, per /how-it-works), keeps 90 days of daily history and has a "refresh now" button for the days right after an update. It's from $9.99/month or $79.99/year, taxes may apply. If an AI assistant is part of your routine, the ASO MCP server lets you ask "what moved since yesterday?" from Claude or Cursor.
FAQ
How often should I check my App Store keyword rankings? Collect ranks once a night and review them once a week. In the two weeks after a metadata update, look every day or two.
Is checking rankings every hour useful? For most indie apps, no. Hourly changes are mostly noise; decisions should come from a trend over several days.
How long should I wait before judging a keyword change? At least a week of nightly data. TrackASO's weekly plan waits 7 days before judging recently changed keywords.
Do App Store rankings differ by country? Yes. Each storefront has its own results, so check each country you care about separately.
How often does TrackASO check rankings? Every tracked keyword is checked every night, and a new keyword is checked as soon as you add it.