Overview of App Indexing: benefits, case studies, implementations, SEO.

1. App Indexing
Daniele Vitali
Lead Mobile Engineer
daniele.vitali@rocket-internet.com

2. Back in 1991…
The very first website

3. 200M
400M
600M
800M
1B
1998 2006 2014201020021992
1M Web
Hostnames
1B Web
Hostnames
1M Apps on
Play Store

4. “As for websites, mobile search will
become a key way to discover and
engage with apps”
–Google

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

6. 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

7. –VentureBeat
“Imagine a web without URLs. That’s
what the mobile app world looks
like now”

8. 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

9. 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

10. Giants Driving Adoption
Cards AppLinks
App Indexing

11. App Indexing
Acquisition Re-Engagement

12. Acquire new users

13. Increase traffic

14. Autocompletion

15. Now On Tap

16. Higher Ranking

17. 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

18. Case Studies
+11.6% - daily traffic from referrals
+4.5% - CTR for deep links over web
links
+8% - app traffic
https://goo.gl/AgNkML

19. Indexing the app

20. Requirements
Google Chrome / Google Search app
Android 2.3+ (API level 9)
User must be signed in for
Autocompletion benefits

21. Add Deep Linking Support

22. Add Deep Linking Support

23. App Indexing APIs

24. Publish the Deep Links

25. Publish the Deep Links

26. URI Schema
protocol package ID
scheme
host path

27. Associate app with web site

28. Associate app with web site

29. Google Search Console

30. Google Search Console

31. Google Search Console

32. Google Search Console

33. Google Search Console

34. Android Studio 2.0
Support for deep linking
Code generation
Static Analysis
Real time testing

35. App Indexing for iOS 9
Rely on Universal Links
Re-engage users
Ranking boost
No new user acquisition
CocoaPods repository

36. 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.

37. Integrating App Indexing
in iOS 9
Pull App Indexing from CocoaPods
Import App Indexing
pod ‘GoogleAppIndexing'
pod install
#import <GoogleAppIndexing/GoogleAppIndexing.h>

38. 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;
}

39. SEO for App-only
content
App Indexing API
Time spent on a single content
App Crawler from Googlebot
Don’t cheat!

40. Measure App indexing
benefits

41. Measure App indexing
benefits

42. Measure App indexing
benefits

43. App Indexing
for App-only content

44. 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

45. Google App Streaming

46. Google App Streaming

47. Google App Streaming

48. Google App Streaming

49. 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

50. SignUp for Preview
https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/app-only

51. 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

52. 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

53. Tips And Tricks
Continue to add deep links
Coverage is important
Consider App Indexing a requirement
First Click Free experience
Use Google Search Console

54. Questions?
Thank you
Daniele Vitali
Lead Mobile Engineer
daniele.vitali@rocket-internet.com