Overview
When analyzing ratings in AppTweak, you may notice negative values (e.g. -4, -46) in the ratings breakdown — most commonly in the Ratings Gained chart and table under ASO Intelligence → Reviews & Ratings → Ratings.
This article explains:
Why negative values appear
How ratings data is collected
What these values actually represent
📊 How Ratings Data is Collected
AppTweak collects ratings data by scraping the total number of ratings per star level (1★ to 5★) daily from the App Store and Google Play.
Each day, we record the total number of ratings per star
We do not track individual ratings or deletions
We only store the aggregated totals shown by the stores
🔄 How Ratings Are Displayed
The values shown in the ratings breakdown represent the day-over-day difference (net change), not the total number of ratings.
Example:
Yesterday: 10 ratings (5★)
Today: 13 ratings (5★)
👉 AppTweak displays: +3
This means there are 3 more ratings today than there were yesterday
📅 What If a Day's Data Is Missing?
In rare cases, AppTweak may not be able to collect ratings data for a specific day (for example, due to a store-side outage or a temporary scraping issue).
When that happens, the daily change is calculated against the most recent previous day with available data, rather than the immediate calendar day before.
This means:
A single day's bar may occasionally cover changes accumulated over more than 24 hours.
This can make a particular day appear to have an unusually large positive or negative value, even though the underlying store totals changed gradually.
This behavior keeps the chart continuous and avoids gaps, while still reflecting the real net change reported by the store.
➖ Why Do Negative Ratings Appear?
A negative value means:
The total number of ratings for that star level is lower than it was on the previous day with available data.
Example:
In the screenshot above, the 2★ ratings on December 11 decreased by 2 compared to December 10 (the previous displayed date).
For instance, if the App Store reported 1,250 two-star ratings on December 10 and only 1,248 on December 11, AppTweak will display -2 for 2★ on December 11.
This means the store's published total of 2★ ratings dropped by 2 between those two days. AppTweak is simply reflecting the change reported by the store — it does not decide which ratings were added or removed.
❗ What Causes Negative Values?
Negative values occur because the total rating count reported by the app stores has decreased. This can happen for several reasons:
App Store or Google Play removing ratings: The stores periodically clean up ratings they consider invalid — for example, ratings flagged as spam, fraudulent, or violating their review policies.
Users deleting their own ratings: End users can remove or update their previously submitted ratings at any time, which lowers the total count for the corresponding star level.
Store-side methodology changes: Occasionally, Apple or Google change how they aggregate or report ratings. A well-known example is Google's 2021 transition from a single worldwide rating count to per-country rating counts, which caused many apps to show large negative drops on a specific date — even though no individual ratings were actually deleted.
In all three cases, AppTweak only sees the new (lower) total reported by the store and reflects the difference. We cannot determine which of these reasons applies to a given drop.
⚠️ Important Limitations
AppTweak does not:
Identify which specific ratings were removed
Distinguish between user-deleted and store-removed ratings
Track deletions directly
👉 We only reflect the net change in total ratings as reported by the stores.
🧠 Key Takeaways
Ratings are based on daily total counts published by the stores
Values shown in the breakdown are net daily changes, not cumulative totals
Negative values indicate that the store's reported total has dropped between two consecutive data points
Drops can be caused by store-side removals, user deletions, or store-level methodology changes.
AppTweak cannot identify which specific ratings were removed, nor distinguish between the possible causes of a drop.