App Indexing

Daniele Vitali Lead Mobile Engineer

daniele.vitali@rocket-internet.com

Back in 1991…

The very first website

200M

400M

600M

800M

1B

1998 2006 2014201020021992

1M Web Hostnames

1B Web Hostnames

1M Apps on Play Store

“As for websites, mobile search will become a key way to discover and

engage with apps”

–Google

So many apps, but how many do we actively use?

60% are not used

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

2011 2012 2013

23

10 11 12

28

33

Apps on smartphone

Actively used apps

–VentureBeat

“Imagine a web without URLs. That’s what the mobile app world looks

like now”

Deep Linking

Emerging technology to reference contents, pages, states of the apps

Makes easy to jump from one app to an other

Create a richer mobile UX

Giants Driving Adoption

Cards AppLinks

• Announced in April 2013 • App-to-App linking • Opens apps or download them from a post

• Highest adoption rate for top apps

• Announced at F8 2014

• App-to-App linking

• Only for AppLinks-enabled apps

Giants Driving Adoption

Cards AppLinksApp Indexing

App Indexing

Acquisition Re-Engagement

Acquire new users

Increase traffic

Autocompletion

Now On Tap

Higher Ranking

Case Studies

+15% - dormant app user re-engagement

+10% - weekly sessions per active user

+22.2% - search impressions

+20% - visits coming from Google Search

2x - chance to share an article

+9.6% - restaurant page views

https://goo.gl/AgNkML

Case Studies

+11.6% - daily traffic from referrals

+4.5% - CTR for deep links over web links

+8% - app traffic

https://goo.gl/AgNkML

Indexing the app

Requirements

Google Chrome / Google Search app

Android 2.3+ (API level 9)

User must be signed in for Autocompletion benefits

Add Deep Linking Support

Add Deep Linking Support

App Indexing APIs

Publish the Deep Links

Publish the Deep Links

URI Schema

protocol package ID

scheme

host path

Associate app with web site

Associate app with web site

Google Search Console

Google Search Console

Google Search Console

Google Search Console

Google Search Console

Android Studio 2.0

Support for deep linking

Code generation

Static Analysis

Real time testing

App Indexing for iOS 9

Rely on Universal Links

Re-engage users

Ranking boost

No new user acquisition

CocoaPods repository

Integrating App Indexing in iOS 9

Support Universal Links in UIAppDelegate

Create the app-to-site association

Add a com.apple.developer.associated-domains, listing each domain associated

Create an apple-app-site-association file for each associated domain with the content your app supports and host it at the root level of your domain.

Integrating App Indexing in iOS 9

Pull App Indexing from CocoaPods

Import App Indexing

pod ‘GoogleAppIndexing'pod install

#import <GoogleAppIndexing/GoogleAppIndexing.h>

Integrating App Indexing in iOS 9

Register your app in AppDelegate

(BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions { [[GSDAppIndexing sharedInstance] registerApp: @"iTunes ID”]; return YES;}

SEO for App-only content

App Indexing API

Time spent on a single content

App Crawler from Googlebot

Don’t cheat!

Measure App indexing benefits

Measure App indexing benefits

Measure App indexing benefits

App Indexing for App-only content

Google App Streaming

For apps with app-only content which are not installed

Run the app remotely

Works out of the box

No iOS support… yet

Google App Streaming

Google App Streaming

Google App Streaming

Google App Streaming

Google App Streaming

Experimental version

Running on Google Play app

Streaming from Google Cloud Platform

Only for Lollipop+

Only searching with Google app

Only over WiFi

SignUp for Preview

https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/app-only

References

App Indexing on Google Developers - https://developers.google.com/app-indexing

App Indexing on Android Developers - http://developer.android.com/training/app-indexing

Rocket Guidelines for App Indexing - https://wiki.jira.rocket-internet.de/display/RELEASE/App+Indexing

Case Studies - https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/partners/case-studies

App Streaming - http://marketingland.com/google-app-streaming-web-of-apps-152449

Search Quality Guidelines - http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

Tips And Tricks

App Indexing for app-only content available soon

Include App Indexing API

Prefer http over custom schema

Index iOS content with Universal Linking

Tips And Tricks

Continue to add deep links

Coverage is important

Consider App Indexing a requirement

First Click Free experience

Use Google Search Console

Questions?

Thank you

Daniele Vitali Lead Mobile Engineer

daniele.vitali@rocket-internet.com