Plural and Singular Keywords
Apple's App Store search treats common plural and singular forms of a word as equivalent for most terms, which means including both usually wastes character space rather than adding coverage.
For most English nouns, 'tracker' and 'trackers' are read as the same stem by Apple's search indexing. Entering both in a 100-character field spends roughly double the characters for no additional search coverage.
This isn't universal across every word or every language, and irregular plurals or words that carry a different meaning in singular versus plural form are the exceptions worth testing rather than assuming. When in doubt, the safer default is one form and using the saved characters for a distinct term.
This is a narrower, more mechanical case of the broader keyword cannibalization problem: any two entries that cover overlapping search ground are wasting field space that could instead extend reach to a new query.
Frequently asked questions
- Are there languages where plural and singular forms need to be entered separately?
- Stemming behavior varies by language, and it isn't fully documented by Apple for every locale. If you're localizing into a language with irregular or unpredictable plural forms, treat the assumption as untested for that market rather than universal.
Related terms
- Keyword CannibalizationKeyword cannibalization in ASO occurs when an app's multiple metadata fields target the same keyword, wasting limited character space rather than covering additional search terms.
- Single Keyword vs. Keyword PhraseIn the App Store keyword field, single words are indexed individually and recombined by Apple's algorithm, which changes how you should weigh one broad word against a specific multi-word phrase.
- App Store Metadata FieldsApp Store metadata fields are the text inputs that affect how an app is discovered and presented in the App Store — primarily the name, subtitle, keyword field, and developer name, each with different character limits and ranking weight.
Browse the glossary
Put this into practice
Score App Store keywords by popularity and difficulty across 109 storefronts — the numbers behind plural and singular keywords.
Start keyword research