Why Deep Linking is the Next Big Thing: App Indexing - SMX East 2015

Editor's Notes

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• #3: Apps were initially conceived in an add-on model, where the platform of the phone that you purchased would allow you to add on functionality that you could purchase or download from a walled garden. Developers were expected to describe their apps so that users could know what they did, but the problem was that developers are not very good at writing product descriptions, and in the walled garden, there was no way to see what content was actually IN the app beyond just a few screenshots and summary text.
• #8: There’s a lot of documentation out there on deep linking right now. My colleague Cindy Krum and I even wrote this piece on Google App Indexing for SEL last month and it was a pretty exhaustive look at what’s going on with Google app indexing and how to get your apps indexed. It was very well received…
• #9: … even John Mueller tweeted it out! But then, at the end of the month…
• #10: Google changed some documentation!
• #13: So step 1 is largely the same… pick out a URL scheme.
• #15: Defining the activity or screen that the app opens for different paths
• #16: Until recently, Google’s App Indexing API has been used solely to index previously-viewed android deep links for inclusion in Google’s autocomplete, but now it’s Google’s preferred method for app indexing. This is because, if your app supports HTTP scheme URLs, Google can now use the App Indexing API to discover new screens in your app as they are created. This is great for Google because they no longer have to rely on their web crawler to find App Screen URLs.
• #17: Add google play services to your project, then modify activities to support the App Indexing API. ABOVE CODE IS NOT COMPLETE>DO NOT JUST COPY PASTE INTO YOUR APP>JUST FOR EXAMPLE Bonus: https://github.com/google/santa-tracker-android Google open-sourced a project that uses the App Indexing API so you (or your developers) can go snoop
• #18: Required for Android apps if you’re not using the API. Create a new XML file, res/xml/noindex.xml, and put it in your app's XML resources directory.
• #19: This is a requirement for custom schemes (so all iOS apps and Android apps that use custom schemes), and will still help give you more granular control if you’re using HTTP schemes and the API
• #24: Verify website in Google Play and then log into Google Search console using Google Play account
• #25: So step 1 is largely the same… pick out a URL scheme.
• #26: So step 1 is largely the same… pick out a URL scheme.
• #27: So step 1 is largely the same… pick out a URL scheme.
• #28: The domain is securely associated with your app using an SSL cert to sign a file that is stored on your secure web server
• #29: The domain is securely associated with your app using an SSL cert to sign a file that is stored on your secure web server *you’re sending a sitemap for your app
• #30: NOTES: In some cases, it’s possible that the URL your app receives doesn’t represent anything in your app, or it could represent outdated or malformed content. In this case, Apple wants your app to “fail gracefully” which could mean displaying an error alert or opening the URL in Safari instead, by calling UIApplication OpenURL Entitlements: You have to prefix it with applinks: and also add any subdomains and variants that you might have (www.domain.com, news.domain.com, etc.). This will enable your app to request a special JSON file apple-app-site-association from your domain. When you first run your app it will download this file from https://domain.com/apple-app-site-association. Jump to the next step to learn how to build this file.
• #31: You can use a wildcard so you don’t have to submit each URL one by one
• #36: We no longer need to support cocoapods
• #37: This is a requirement for custom schemes (so all iOS apps and Android apps that use custom schemes), and will still help give you more granular control if you’re using HTTP schemes and the API
• #38: Verification tool is coming soon
• #39: What does it mean when we talk about apple search and where will deep links show up if they are indexed for apple search?
• #42: Not just in search *queries* in Spotlight, Siri, and Safari, but also in Siri Suggestions in Spotlight. Now if you’re paying attention to this slide, you may notice that there are some pretty personal results showing up here, like a calendar event and a playback on a podcast that notes it was listened to “yesterday”… Apple is able to surface these incredibly user-specific style results because…
• #43: Apple has two indexes, a device index for private content and a public cloud index for public content. Apps can have both kinds of screens. EX. an Airbnb listing may be a public screen, while a message between a host and a guest would be a private screen. In Apple search, both of these results can surface from the same query. Users will likely never know which index their search results are coming from, but this is very important for developers and marketers to understand as we set our iOS apps up for Apple app indexing.
• #44: There are 3 different methods for apple app indexing, and each method is a little different.
• #47: Don’t forget to implement UIApplication delegate so this can be opened in your app later
• #51: And again the same UIApplication delegate we used for handoff is called when the app is opened from a corespotlight search result
• #55: Once you’ve set all of this up, you need to make sure Applebot knows your website exists. And the easiest way to do this is to include it in your Support URL or Marketing URL fields in iTunes Connect when you submit your app to the store.
• #60: https://search.developer.apple.com/appsearch-validation-tool/ http://bit.ly/applesearchvalidator