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Thursday, April 03, 2014
In October, we announced guidelines for
App Indexing
for deep linking directly from Google Search results to your Android app. Thanks to all of you
that have expressed interest. We've just enabled
20+ additional applications
that users will soon see app deep links for in Search Results, and starting today we're making app
deep links to English content available globally.
We're continuing to onboard more publishers in all languages. If you haven't added deep link
support to your Android app or specified these links on your website or in your Sitemaps, please
do so and then notify us by filling out this
form.
Here are some best practices to consider when adding deep links to your sitemap or website:
App deep links should only be included for
canonical
web URLs.
Remember to specify an app deep link for your home page.
Not all website URLs in a Sitemap need to have a corresponding app deep link. Do not include app
deep links that aren't supported by your app.
If you are a news site and use
News Sitemaps, be sure to include your
deep link annotations in the News Sitemaps, as well as your general Sitemaps.
Don't provide annotations for deep links that execute native ARM code. This enables app indexing
to work for all platforms.
When Google indexes content from your app, your app will need to make HTTP requests that it
usually makes under normal operation. These requests will appear to your servers as originating
from Googlebot. Therefore, your server's robots.txt file must be configured properly to allow
these requests.
Finally, please make sure the back button behavior of your app leads directly back to the search
results page.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],[],[[["\u003cp\u003eGoogle is expanding App Indexing to more applications and making English content deep links available globally.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eApp developers need to add deep link support to their Android apps and specify these links on their website or in Sitemaps.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWebsite owners should follow best practices for adding deep links, like including them for canonical URLs and specifying a deep link for the home page.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eServers need to be configured to allow Googlebot to access app content for indexing.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eApps should have proper back button behavior leading back to search results.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["Google enabled app deep links for over 20 additional applications, making English content deep links available globally. Developers are encouraged to add deep link support to their Android apps, websites, and Sitemaps, notifying Google via a form. Best practices include linking to canonical URLs, specifying a homepage deep link, and using News Sitemaps if applicable. Servers must allow Googlebot requests for app content indexing. Apps should direct the back button to the search results page.\n"],null,["Thursday, April 03, 2014\n\n\nIn October, we announced guidelines for\n[App Indexing](/search/blog/2013/10/indexing-apps-just-like-websites)\nfor deep linking directly from Google Search results to your Android app. Thanks to all of you\nthat have expressed interest. We've just enabled\n[20+ additional applications](https://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2014/04/accessing-your-app-content-in-google.html)\nthat users will soon see app deep links for in Search Results, and starting today we're making app\ndeep links to English content available globally.\n\n\nWe're continuing to onboard more publishers in all languages. If you haven't added deep link\nsupport to your Android app or specified these links on your website or in your Sitemaps, please\ndo so and then notify us by filling out this\n[form](https://firebase.google.com/docs/app-indexing/).\n\nHere are some best practices to consider when adding deep links to your sitemap or website:\n\n- App deep links should only be included for [canonical](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls) web URLs.\n- Remember to specify an app deep link for your home page.\n- Not all website URLs in a Sitemap need to have a corresponding app deep link. Do not include app deep links that aren't supported by your app.\n- If you are a news site and use [News Sitemaps](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/news-sitemap), be sure to include your deep link annotations in the News Sitemaps, as well as your general Sitemaps.\n- Don't provide annotations for deep links that execute native ARM code. This enables app indexing to work for all platforms.\n\n\nWhen Google indexes content from your app, your app will need to make HTTP requests that it\nusually makes under normal operation. These requests will appear to your servers as originating\nfrom Googlebot. Therefore, your server's robots.txt file must be configured properly to allow\nthese requests.\n\n\nFinally, please make sure the back button behavior of your app leads directly back to the search\nresults page.\n\n\nFor more details on implementation, visit our\n[updated developer guidelines](https://firebase.google.com/docs/app-indexing/). And, as always, you\ncan ask questions on the\n[mobile section of our webmaster forum](https://support.google.com/webmasters/threads?hl=en&thread_filter=(category:mobile_web)).\n\n\nPosted by\n[Michael Xu](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelxu1999/)\nSoftware Engineer"]]
