Best Practices

This page has advice on how you should implement your app and list it in the store. As the store matures and we learn from developers' experiences, these recommendations will be updated.

Design a great app

This is the hard part. For advice, you can read articles about app design. Also, follow the pre-launch checklist.

Support Google Accounts

If your app requires user login, we recommend that you provide at least some support for Google Accounts. The reason is that if a user purchases your app from the Chrome Web Store, odds are the user is already logged into a Google Account whenever they use your app. Reducing the number of logins improves the user's experience.

If you already have a login system, consider correlating the Google Account ID to the user account in your system. You can do this by storing the user's OpenID URL from Google's OpenID service, in the same way that you store other data that's associated with a user's account. When someone is logged into a Google Account but not your login system, you can automatically log them into their user account in your system.

See Identifying the User for more information about supporting Google Accounts.

Keep ex-users' data for 30 days or more

You should keep users' data for at least 30 days after they cancel their subscription or uninstall your app. Users might be unsubscribed for reasons beyond their control, and even if they do intentionally unsubscribe or uninstall the app, they might come back.

Cache license data

If you use Chrome Web Store Payments, you can use the Licensing API to programmatically check for payment, as described in Checking for Payment.

But don't query the license server too often: Cache the results.

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Create a compelling store listing

The better your app's listing in the store, the more users will find and try your app. When choosing your app's name, writing its description, and designing its logo, keep in mind Google's Branding Guidelines.

Provide great images

See Supplying Images for guidelines on the images you should supply to the store.

Choose your app's category well

The Chrome Developer Dashboard lets you specify a primary and secondary category for each web app. The primary category determines where your app appears in the store (the secondary category isn't used to display your app).

Each category is organized into logical groups. The store displays your web app under the group heading and in the filtered category. If no category matches your web app, you can select 'Other'; the store will only display your web app under the group heading. For example, if you choose "Developer Tools" within the Productivity group, your app appears in the store under both the Productivity and Developer Tools lists. Alternatively, if you choose "Other", your app appears in the Productivity list only.

You can also list additional categories or keywords to describe your app. These may be used to improve search relevance in the future, or to influence future versions of the category list. The following list describes the categories that you can choose for your web app. The categories might change; if that happens, your web app might be recategorized.

Group	Categories	Description
Business Tools	Accounting & Finance Admin & Management ERP & Logistics HR & Legal Marketing & Analytics Sales & CRM	Apps to help businesses run successfully.
Education	Academic Resources Family Foreign Languages School Administration Teacher Tools Test Preparation	Apps that teach the user something or can be helpful in a classroom environment.
Entertainment	Books Music Online Video Photos Radio TV & Movies	All leisure apps except for games. Note: An app can be in either Entertainment or Games, but it should never be in both.
Games	Action & Adventure Games Arcade Games Board Games Card Games Educational Games Puzzle Games Role Playing Games Sports Games Strategy Games Virtual Worlds	All kinds of games that users can play. Also see Education and Entertainment.
Lifestyle	Astrology Fashion Food Health & Fitness Money Religion Shopping Travel	Apps for everyday life.
News & Weather	Blogs Magazines News Aggregators Newspapers Social News Sports Weather Forecasts	Apps that feature news about current events or weather.
Productivity	Calendar & Scheduling Creative Tools Design Essentials Developer Tools Office Applications Online Documents & File Storage Search & Browsing Tools Task Management	Apps that someone might spend a significant amount of time using to get something done. Also see Utilities.
Social & Communication	Blogging Chat & IM Dating Email & Contacts Phone & SMS Social Networking	Apps that help people communicate with each other.
Utilities	Alarms & Clocks Bookmarks Calculators Dictionaries Notepads	Useful apps that have a narrower scope than the ones in the Productivity category.

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