It's going to be a common sight as on-device App Stores become more popular on smartphones, but SEO and potential Black Hat techniques to boost an applications likelihood of being found in a search could be just as important as development skills and making good banner ads. Pocket Gamer has an interview with Digital Chocolate (the name behind N-Gage titles such as Cafe Solitare) on the listing techniques that show them pushing the envelope.

...If you mention a few rival products on a game's App Store listing, your game will show up when people search for the others. But Digital Chocolate is taking the tactic to new heights (or lows) with Chocolate Shop Frenzy. Here's the full list of other game titles it manages to squeeze into its App Store listing:

Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Super Mario, Cooking Mama, Wedding Dash, Mystery Case Files, Boom Bloxx, Tetris, Spore, Super Monkey Ball, Topple, Bejeweled, Diner Dash, Guitar Rock Tour, Scrabble, Tap Tap Revenge, Texas Hold'em, Hero of Sparta, Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D, Sally's Salon, Smarter than a 5th Grader.

Legitimate technique or crossing the line and polluting natural search? I suspect that no matter the answer we're going to see more of this as App Stores become more prevalent as they appear on all the popular smartphone platforms.

(More on Pocket Gamer, thanks to Mobile Games Blog).