Meta Quest Search and Explore Ranking Disclosure
Date of last revision: June 8, 2021
Meta Quest Search allows users in the European Economic Area (“Users,” and each a “User”), among other areas, to discover new applications, games, and experiences (collectively, the “Apps”) on the Meta Quest Store based on a keyword entered by a User (“Meta Quest Search”). Meta Quest Explore is a function on the Oculus Companion App and the Quest headsets which suggests new Apps, experiences, events and social connections amongst other things to Users (“Meta Quest Explore”).
We want Apps that Users see on Meta Quest Search and Meta Quest Explore to be as interesting and useful to them as possible. We prioritize the following signals, amongst others, to decide which Apps to show Users:
- User searches: When a User runs a search on Meta Quest Search, we aim to match Apps that are directly relevant to the terms, options, and filters selected by the User. For example, a User could choose to search for “sports” apps that fall within a certain rating, genre, game mode, player mode, app, or sale category.
- Engagement: For both Meta Quest Search and Meta Quest Explore, we rely on signals related to Users’ browsing activity within the Meta Quest Store, Companion App, and Quest Headsets. For example, we will suggest Apps based on your previous searches on, or purchases from, the Meta Quest Store.
- User demographics: For both Meta Quest Search and Meta Quest Explore, we use signals such as a User’s age, location, and language to prioritize certain Apps for you.
- Listing quality: For both Meta Quest Search and Meta Quest Explore, we measure an App’s quality by assessing objective attributes such as whether the App’s page contains screenshots of high quality and whether App received a large number of positive reviews. We prioritize Apps that are high quality based on these objective attributes.
- User experience: We want to show Users Apps, experiences, events and social connections that meet their expectations of quality and reliability.
- Content Features: For Meta Quest Search and Meta Quest Explore, we use an App’s content attributes and platform performance such as the app's genre, how recently the App was uploaded, and aggregate purchases to surface the latest and top apps in a category that users may be interested in.
In addition, our algorithms weigh signals differently in different contexts. For example, when a User runs a search, the order in which results appear is heavily influenced by the relevance of Apps to the User’s query. When a User clicks on a category of Apps, the order of Apps displayed is influenced more by User preferences, as these signals tend to focus more on helping the User discover new Apps that may be relevant or useful to that particular User. In addition to the signals listed above, we also use other less influential signals when displaying Apps, such as the User’s device (e.g., app, browser, phone, tablet, computer, etc.) and may also highlight or suggest certain Apps to Users in connection with seasonality, special events, special engagements or broad consumer interest.
