What is App Indexing & Deep Linking?
Technical fundamentals of indexing native mobile apps in Google Search and establishing deep-linking schemes.
Speakers: Mert Azizoğlu
Content author
17 Aug 2017
Video Transcript
⏱ 2 min read• 296 wordsRead the full speech or switch languages
Video Transcript
⏱ 2 min read• 296 wordsRead the full speech or switch languages
App Indexing, as the name suggests, means making mobile apps indexable by search engines. So just like with websites, content inside native or hybrid mobile apps can show up in search engine results pages. If there's an app result matching your query on Google, two things can happen. First, if the user already has the mobile app installed, they get sent straight to the app's home screen. In the other case, the app isn't installed on their device. Then they get sent to the app store to download it.
Deep Linking is basically a more detailed version of App Indexing. Here you get the same two scenarios as App Indexing. If the user doesn't have the app, the search takes them to the install screen in that platform's store. If the app is installed, things work at the page level. The user lands directly on the content matching their search, right inside the app. To pull this off, you start with the native app side of the app you're doing App Indexing for. Grant the required technical permissions there. Then link from the relevant page on your website to that same content inside your app.
So it has to be a one-to-one match. Thanks to Deep Linking, your site points to a specific screen in your app. Now visitors coming from search results can reach that content in the mobile app. This linking and permission setup is a technical topic. You'll find the docs and Google's guide resources below the video. You can do App Indexing and Deep Linking for apps built on both iOS and Android. Want more engagement, more downloads, and better CTR values? Want a positive impact on your whole site's organic results? Then we'd recommend setting up App Indexing and Deep Linking.
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