A Critical Integrity Flaw in the Connect IQ Store Ranking System

Artificial rankings and inflated download numbers can secure better visibility. That increased exposure then generates genuine downloads, reviews, and purchases, creating a clear Matthew effect: the products already near the top of the rankings continue to absorb an ever-greater share of the platform’s organic traffic.

At the same time, the worse the ranking and recommendation system becomes, the less willing users are to scroll down and search for content that actually meets their needs. The top three products may receive hundreds of times more exposure than those ranked only a few dozen places lower. This enormous traffic gap makes it almost impossible for watch faces further down the list to gain visibility through legitimate means or gradually move up the rankings.

Eventually, the entire Connect IQ marketplace becomes stagnant. The same products keep receiving most of the traffic, while new releases struggle to reach users at all. Over time, people lose interest in opening the store because they see the same familiar products every time. A platform that should help users discover fresh, high-quality content instead becomes stale, frustrating, and increasingly irrelevant.

Based on my observations, around 80% of well-known developers use certain “special tactics” to gain visibility. The main reason is that Garmin provides almost no effective exposure channels for newly released watch faces or apps. With hundreds of new watch faces being published every day, it is extremely difficult for a new product to be discovered without using such tactics.

This has little to do with product quality. Even thoughtfully designed, high-quality watch faces often have to rely on similar methods just to receive a basic level of visibility.

I am also familiar with several ways of influencing chart rankings. A few years ago, I replicated some of the methods used by other developers. However, because this significantly affected my competitors’ sales, I was eventually reported.

Every recommendation algorithm has vulnerabilities, but Garmin’s current system feels particularly outdated—as if it came from the last century. I previously used a web crawler to track chart movements over an extended period. The data suggested that, for some charts, the number of new ratings received each day was almost the only meaningful ranking factor. Other charts appeared to be driven mainly by download volume.

At a time when short-form video platforms and personalized recommendation systems have become highly sophisticated, Garmin could easily introduce a degree of randomized discovery. New products could first be shown to a small, randomly selected group of users. The system could then measure their interest—such as clicks, downloads, and actual usage—and use those signals to determine a second round of exposure and promotion. This would be far more effective than relying almost entirely on rankings to distribute visibility.

Rankings can certainly remain part of the platform, but placing them in the most prominent and valuable discovery position is inappropriate. As long as rankings control the platform’s most valuable exposure, developers will continue competing aggressively for those positions—and ranking manipulation and other forms of abuse will never disappear.

There were a few issues with this over the last 10+ years, but to me, it looks like they all have been fixed.

There are still some apps with a really high number of ratings, but there is really no way to go back in time and determine which are real.  Some devs were offering free unlock codes for a review and that was stopped as it really inflated the number of reviews.

artificially increasing their ratings, reviews, downloads, or purchase

Do you have any idea how they do it? The only thing that comes to mind is buying devices, registering accounts and writing reviews, but it doesn't seem like a profitable business.

NB: I do not plan to abuse these mechanisms and encourage Garmin to block them immediately.