FunnelHound / Guides / US extra keyword locales

The US App Store reads more than one keyword field

By Emin — indie iOS developer building FunnelHound · Published 27 Aug 2026

Poorly-kept ASO secret with a well-kept catch: US App Store search reads metadata from more locales than English (U.S.) — Spanish (Mexico) is the famous one. Every cross-read locale is up to 160 extra indexable characters (title 30 + subtitle 30 + keywords 100) that most apps leave blank. The catch: Apple documents none of it, so you verify before you bet.

The mechanism

Your app's listing exists once per locale, and each localized version carries its own title, subtitle and 100-character keyword field. Storefronts don't read only "their" locale: the US storefront has long been observed indexing Spanish (Mexico) metadata for US search — fill es-MX and its keywords rank in the US, on top of your en-US set. Practitioners periodically report a longer list of cross-read locales, with claims running as high as 1,000+ free characters across nine-plus unused slots. Plausible; unofficial; changeable without notice. Which is exactly why this guide has a verification section instead of a locale table.

Why this beats squeezing the main field again

You've already fought the 100-character war: no repeats, no phrases, filled to exactly 100. After that optimization plateaus, the choice is deleting a decent keyword to test a new one — or opening a whole new field where the new keyword costs nothing. Cross-read locales are the second option. And unlike most ASO tricks, the downside is nearly zero: worst case, the extra locale simply isn't read in the US, and you've accidentally done the first step of real localization — which was worth doing anyway (as is the en-GB free field covered there).

Doing it without wrecking anything

• Different words, not copies. Cross-read fields pool with your main set, so duplicating en-US keywords into es-MX wastes the gift — same rule as repeats inside one field. New terms only.
• Mind the humans. Locale metadata isn't invisible: Spanish-language device users in the US can see the es-MX listing. Keep the visible parts (title, subtitle) coherent in that language — keyword-stuff the hidden field, not the shop window.
• Second-tier keywords here, money keywords in en-US. Cross-read weighting is unofficial; don't move your primary terms into an undocumented mechanism.
• One locale at a time. Ship es-MX, verify, then consider the next candidate. Three locales at once = attribution soup.

The verification protocol

Plant a flag: add one distinctive keyword that appears nowhere in your English metadata to the candidate locale's keyword field. Wait out indexing (2–4 weeks — the usual patience rules apply). Then check the US storefront: ranking for the planted term proves the cross-read; nothing after week four means that locale isn't read there, delete the experiment. Watch US search impressions across the change — a real cross-read shows up as a step in impressions, which is the number that pays, and the one a milestone in FunnelHound will happily hold up against your baseline.

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Data notes: locale cross-indexing is undocumented Apple behavior — es-MX on the US storefront is the long-standing, widely replicated case; broader locale lists are practitioner reports that change over time. Verify on your own app before depending on it. Field limits per App Store Connect documentation as of 2026.