Our app cannot be found by its own name on the France App Store, because search silently rewrites the query.
App: Kaiho: Arrêter de fumer / Kaiho: Quit Smoking Coach Apple ID: 6760356299 Feedback Assistant: FB24267557
WHAT HAPPENS Searching "Kaiho" on the France storefront returns kaiju monster games. The page reads "Affichage des résultats pour « kaiju »" ("Showing results for kaiju") with a "Rechercher « Kaiho » à la place ?" link underneath. Our app is not in the results at all. The first item served is a paid ad for an unrelated app, then KAIJU N° 8 THE GAME.
THIS IS NOT A RANKING QUESTION The app is correctly indexed on that same storefront: searching "kaiho arreter de fumer" returns it as the #1 result. The substitution happens before ranking the term itself is replaced.
TWO APPLE SYSTEMS DISAGREE While typing, the App Store's own autocomplete proposes "kaiho: arrêter de fumer" as its first suggestion, and offers "kaiho in Developers". After submitting, the results engine rewrites the term to "kaiju". The suggestion service and the results engine hold contradictory views of the same query.
REPRODUCIBLE ACROSS STOREFRONTS The search response exposes the substitution explicitly. MZSearch with term=kaiho returns "spellCorrection": "kaiju" on X-Apple-Store-Front 143442 (France), and "kahoot" on 143459 (Switzerland), 143443 (Germany) and 143450 (Italy). Storefronts 143441 (US), 143446 (Belgium), 143455 (Canada) and 143454 (Spain) return no spell correction and do return the app. Measured 2026-08-11.
WHY IT MATTERS "Kaiho" is our French trademark (No. 5255039, INPI, classes 9, 41, 42) and the only term under which we ask people to look for us. France is our home market and the source of nearly all our iOS installs. Anyone told to "search for Kaiho on the App Store" lands on monster games instead.
I have filed FB24267557 and opened a Developer Support case under Distribution > App Store search and visibility.
QUESTION FOR THE COMMUNITY Has anyone managed to get Apple to drop a spell correction on their own brand name? I have seen the same pattern reported for "Myseum" being corrected to "Museum" (thread #780657) with no resolution posted. If you got it fixed, what actually moved it? Feedback Assistant, a support case, Search Ads volume on the exact term, or simply time?