Mac Store search defaults to IOS Apps devastating Mac Catalyst sales.

Would you mind giving an example of a search that is failing to provide the appropriate results?

"Chess"

Just to clarify, the issue I am reporting is that when a user searches in the Mac App Store, the default visible result set appears to show iPhone/iPad apps designed for Mac, while actual Mac apps are only shown after selecting the separate “Mac Apps” option.

This is a different issue from normal ranking.

A user searching inside the Mac App Store would reasonably expect Mac apps to be shown by default. If the search view defaults to “iPhone & iPad Apps”, then Mac apps are effectively hidden behind an extra selection step, regardless of their normal search ranking.

Please can you confirm specifically:

Is it expected behaviour for the Mac App Store search to default to “iPhone & iPad Apps” rather than “Mac Apps” for some searches?

If yes, how is a developer with a dedicated Mac/Catalyst app expected to compete in Mac App Store search if their app is hidden behind the “Mac Apps” selector?

Can Apple remove only the macOS/Catalyst platform from my app record while keeping the iPhone/iPad app live, so that the iPad version can appear as “Designed for iPad” on Mac instead?

It appears to depend upon the keyword, which makes things even less intuitive. I contacted Apple support but no reply yet. Really need to know if this is now intentional behaviour.

But then it jumps to Mac apps for other keywords:

I researched some more ... For specific high-volume queries such as “Chess”, Mac App Store search defaults to the iPhone/iPad result set rather than Mac Apps. This makes dedicated Mac/Catalyst apps invisible unless the user manually changes the selector.

Can this really be intentional?