ios & android app indexing & app actions

Justin Briggs, Briggsby

How to Setup App Indexing

for iOS & Android

Justin Briggs

Founder, Briggsby

[email protected]

@JustinRBriggs

Say Hello!

Welcome to the future of search

Turn of the Tide

Mobile Moment

Turn of the Tide

Mobile App

Moment

Radically changing role of search

Current Discovery Model

App

App

App

Content

Action

Content

Action

Content

Action

Search

New Discovery Model

App

App

App

Content

Action

Content

Action

Content

Action

Search

Deep links & app indexing are making app content accessible

Drive App Engagement

App launch

can be default

behavior

Clicking this

launches the

app!

This is supported by Google & Bing

For both iOS & Android(And Windows Phones on Bing)

15% of Google searches on Android return deep links to apps through App Indexing

Search as an Interface

Visits to app,

not websites

Takes action on

your behalf

Hands free UI

(wearables)

Solutions, not

web pages

Search examples: http://blog.tackmobile.com/article/android-wear-gui-elements/

Evolution of technical SEO

App Deep Links

android-app://{package_id}/{scheme}/{host_path}

ios-app://{itunes_id}/{scheme}/{host_path}

package_id - app ID in Play Store or iTunes App Store

scheme - http or custom scheme

host_path - specific content within app

App Indexing for Android apps

(Google)

Intent Filter: AndroidManifest.xml

Defines the structure of your

app URIs

<activity android:name="com.example.android.GizmosActivity"

android:label="@string/title_gizmos" >

<intent-filter android:label="@string/filter_title_viewgizmos">

<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />



<data android:scheme="http"

android:host="example.com"

android:pathPrefix="/gizmos" />

<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />

<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />

</intent-filter>

</activity>

Mange the Intent

Passes the incoming Intent

to a helper method

...

@Override

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

setContentView(R.layout.activity_gizmos);

onNewIntent(getIntent());

}

Mange the Intent

Verify the deep link and

display the gizmos content

protected void onNewIntent(Intent intent) {

String action = intent.getAction();

String data = intent.getDataString();

if (Intent.ACTION_VIEW.equals(action) && data != null) {

String gizmosId = data.substring(data.lastIndexOf("/") + 1);

Uri contentUri =

GizmosContentProvider.CONTENT_URI.buildUpon()

.appendPath(gizmosId).build();

showGizmos(contentUri);

}

App Indexing for iOS Apps

(Google)

Custom URL Scheme in Info.plist

Define {scheme} and gsd-{scheme}

Setup Inter-App Communication

openURL: method launches the app

with the registered scheme and

passes your URL to it

Setup Google’s SDK

This is required to have iOS deep links

#1 Install CocaPods

#2 Add GoogleAppIndexing Pod

#3 Add GoogleAppIndexing post to your Xcode project

#4 Update your code to use SDK and to make API call to handle

back button

Express Interest to Google

https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/ios/interest-form

iOS App Indexing is a limited release

Keep it “First Click Free”

Allow the back button

Don’t block crawl in robots.txt

Test With Android Debug Bridge

This will kick open “page” on

mobile device from console

adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d

"http://example.com/gizmos" com.example.android

Test With Xcrun Tool

This will kick open “page” on

mobile device from console

xcrun simctl openurl YOUR-DEVICE-UUID gsd-

gizmos://123456/?google-deep-

link=gizmos%3A%2F%2Fabcd&google-callback-

url=googleapp%3A%2F%2F&google-min-sdk-

version=1.0.0

Test In The Wild (HTML)

Opens app from web page

<a href="intent://example.com/gizmos#Intent;scheme=http;

package=com.example.android;end;">http://example.com/gizmos</a>

<a href="gsd-gizmos://123456/?google-deep-

link=gizmos%3A%2F%2Fabcd&google-callback-

url=googleapp%3A%2F%2F&google-min-sdk-version=1.0.0">

gizmos://abcd</a>

Testing Deep Links

Will launch

app deep link

Verify site with

Google Play Developer Console & Webmaster Tools

Connect in Google Play Console

Verify the

app’s website

Annotate site for app URI discovery via crawl

Three Ways to Expose App URI

<html>

<head>

...

<link rel="alternate" href="android-

app://com.example.android/http/example.co

m/gizmos" />

...

</head>

<body> … </body>

Rel=“alternate”

ViewAction

XML Sitemap


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<urlset

xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitem

ap/0.9"

xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<url>

<loc>http://example.com/gizmos</loc>

<xhtml:link rel="alternate" href="android-

app://com.example.android/example/gizmos" />

</url>

...

</urlset>

Rel=“alternate”

ViewAction

XML Sitemap

Very similar to a mobile separate-site setup

Launch App From Search

App indexing is now

a ranking factor

Average Lift of 0.29 Positions

0.19

0.48

0.29

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

Rank Lift Over Desktop

App Indexing Ranking Boost

Mobile (Not Installed) Mobile (Installed) Net Benefit

No longer limited to users

with installed app

Drive app installs by leveraging your existing SEO visibility

Manage indexing with robots noindex in app

Indexing Control for Apps

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<search-engine

xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

>

<noindex uri="http://example.com/gizmos/hidden_uri"/>

<noindex

uriPrefix="http://example.com/gizmos/hidden_prefix"/>

<noindex uri="gizmos://hidden_path"/>

<noindex uriPrefix="gizmos://hidden_prefix"/>

</search-engine>

App Resource

Directory

Android Manifest

Indexing Control for Apps

<manifest

xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

package="com.example.android.Gizmos">

<application>

<activity android:name="com.example.android.GizmosActivity"

android:label="@string/title_gizmos" >

<intent-filter android:label="@string/filter_title_viewgizmos">

<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW"/>

...

</activity>

<meta-data android:name="search-engine"

android:resource="@xml/noindex"/>

</application>

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>

</manifest>

App Resource

Directory

Android Manifest

Push to Google with

App Indexing API

Autocomplete App Suggestions

Only the beginning…

Search as an interface

with app actions

App Actions

App Indexing Knowledge Graph App Actions+ =

Leverage Schema.org Actions

<script type="application/ld+json">

{

"@context": "http://schema.org",

"@type": "MusicGroup",

"name": "Weezer", "potentialAction": {

"@type": "ListenAction",

"target": "android-app://com.spotify.music/http/we.../listen"

}

}

</script>

App Actions

Building an Action Graph

Play the Taylor Swift song about hatersAction Entity Listen Action Traditional Keyword Match

55% of teens and 41% of adults use voice search more than 1 time a day

- Google’s Mobile Voice Study

Building an Action Graph

Order me a pizza? Schedule my meeting? Drive my car?

Ok, Google

Bing Supports iOS & Android

App Indexing

Bing’s App Indexing

AppLinks.org Schema.org&

App Links Markup

<head>

<meta property="al:ios:url" content="example://?id=12345678" />

<meta property="al:ios:app_store_id" content="12345678" />

<meta property="al:android:url" content="example://?id=12345678" />

<meta property="al:android:package" content="com.example.www" />

</head>

Schema.org App Actions<script type="application/ld+json">

{ "@context": "http://schema.org",

"@type": "Book",

"additionalType" : "http://www.productontology.org/id/Audiobook">

"name": "Coraline",

"author" : "Neil Gaiman",

"isbn" : "9781937091415",

"potentialAction":

{

"@type": "PlayAction",

"target": [

"http://www.audible.com/pd/Kids/Coraline-Audiobook/B0036GTJ48",

{

"@type": "EntryPoint",

"urlTemplate": "audible://listennow?asin=B0036GTJ48&title=Coraline",

"application": {

"@type": "SoftwareApplication",

"@id": "bdc813dd-c20b-41f8-8646-de72fa0b365d"

"name": "Audible",

"operatingSystem": "Windows Phone 8.1"

}

] } } </script>

Thanks!

[email protected]