I’ve heard an saw a lot of people complaining about google suspending their apps from Google play, sometimes it might be meaningless but most of the newbies make a few common mistakes when they were getting started.
I did too, I’ve got a suspension too.
Let me suggest you few tips (or tricks, whatever you want to call them) to stay safe from suspension from google .
Make sure Managed Publishing is turned on
Managed publishing in google play console can help you know if your update has a violation before it going live on google play, this might help you fix the violation and avoid suspension a little bit.
If google has issues with your store listing, screenshots and other metadata then the update gets rejected and you’ll get a notification about what annoyed them.
Enabling this might need you to manually approve all the updates to go live on play after the review is complete, but I totally recommend it as it might save you from a violation.
Unsure about a policy ? Push to Open Beta
Okay, you might sometimes be unsure about that your app might override the google policies, then I recommend you to push the app to Open Beta instead of directly pushing it to production.
I’m not so sure if this works, but this is what I personally do when implementing a new feature and unsure about the policy compliance.
I’m not sure but I think they do not suspend apps that are in OpenBeta but reject them instead. Maybe this might help you stay away from suspension on the initial release.
Beware when you’re including google services
If your app uses some kind of google service, like Youtube Videos or Admob. make sure you use the official SDKs provided by google.
Many people on reddit get suspended for using external players or webview for playing youtube videos in their apps or placing in-app ads on youtube videos.
Both of these violate google’s policies, so make sure you check the policies before using services that google offer in your app.
Never place any kinds of ads in the activity containing the youtube player or the video
Google also provides api’s like Translate, Maps and more…. Don’t use the translate api to make a Translation app (That basically eating their service using their own tech).
Finally, Read the developer policies
I know it’s so long and messy but still go throught it in your free time. Maybe your app might pass review today, but sometime in future google may suddenly decide to get rid of your app for something they found violated.
Be safe, most importantly for individual developers, organisation accounts seems like they have some immunity. (just my opinion)
And make sure your developer account google account is not your personal google account. I’ve seen some people loosing access to all other services like Gmail, Photos and the whole account when their developer account got suspended.
Just to be on the safe side, create another google account to make the developer account.
I made a few mistakes when I was just getting started with android dev, so I thought this might help you avoid them.