Firebase App-Indexing - SMX London 2016

#SMX #XXA @Davidiwanow
Google App Indexing
What you need to
know about
Google App-
Indexing

• Involved in search since 2007
• Focused on
• App-Indexing
• App-Store Optimisation
• App Download Campaigns
• Responsive Design
• Technical SEO
• SEO Product Manager since July 2013
Who is this guy?

Joining BlueGlass London as
Director of Services
Who is this guy?

• Introduction
• Technical implementation
• Meta tags
• API
• XML Sitemap
• Common Pitfalls
• Tracking is Tougher
• Errors to expect
• Results achieved with App-Indexing
• Increased app activity
• App-installs
• Increased visibility
• What’s next?
App-Indexing topics covered in my session

Introduction
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(SWAP IN YOUR OWN AS NEEDED)
Photo Credit: CadaverTeeth

The current process for finding
if your favourite web app often
requires a search in the app
store.
Current Play Store experience sub optimal for discovery

Often you can easily be
confused when looking for the
official app.
It is not a bad thing to have
multiple apps but often the
distinction isn’t clear.
Current Play Store search experience could be better

Sometimes it’s just too much
effort to work out which app
you would need.
Current Play Store search experience could be better

Why I think it’s important
Photo Credit: Mike Rastiello

• Process for users is fairly simple for
App-Indexing.
• By encouraging users to re-engage
with your app they are less likely to
uninstall or use a competitor.
• It takes about 48 hours for App-
Indexing results to show once you
have installed the app.
• It can take 1-2 weeks for App-
Indexing content to show in
SERPs.
What is the process?
Do you have
the app?
Yes
Open in App
No
Install App
Open
Website

• If you rely a lot on branded
traffic then App-Indexing can
be a lifeline.
• If app is installed they don’t
see aggregators or affiliates
as much on branded search.
• The CTR is not as high as I
would expect but it’s great
for branding
You can get these types of results

The first result the website is
13th and the second result with
app indexing the app result is
10th
You can think of App-Indexing
as personalised results on
steroids!
Which result would capture your attention?

App Indexing Technical Implementation Guide
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Photo Credit: James Marvin Phelps

Pros:
• See what pages you are trying to
index & can be done easily without
mobile app updates
Cons:
• Up to a 2 week delay in crawling
and showing in SERPs
• Your competitors can see what
pages you are indexing
• Custom scheme URLs are
supported but are discouraged
Meta Tags
<link rel="alternate" href="android-
app://com.smx.london/day/2/?countr
y=uk&language=en" />

Pros:
• Linked to user actions within your
app (engagement)
• Competitors can’t see what pages
you are App indexing at scale
• App shows in auto suggest
• Can use Now on Tap
Cons:
• Support from your mobile
developers to update your app
App-Indexing API

Pros:
• All your URLs are in one place you
want Google to crawl
Cons:
• You might have to rebuild your
websites XML Sitemap logic
Add Deep Links to your XML Sitemap

• Google Suggests you want to do at
least 2 out of 3 to get the most
impact from App-Indexing.
• My personal preference is using
Meta Tags and supported by App-
Indexing API
• Diagnosing errors with API is
tougher and if you screw up
something you need to release an
app update.
Which option should you do?
My perception on impact
API Meta Tags XML Sitemap

Common Pitfalls of App-Indexing
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Photo Credit: James Marvin PhelpsPhoto Credit: Tim Green

• When most apps were created
they didn’t have to deal with
Deep Linking or App-Indexing.
• It was almost impossible to create
a 404 error page so they may not
have any logic built in yet….
• App-Indexing may surface issues
previously ignored by your mobile
team as an edge case
App Indexing will create 404 pages

• Your app probably doesn’t
have a lot of pages your
desktop site has?
• Your app load time is now
much more of an issue as it
probably wasn’t optimise for
deep linking
• Consider how your site might
deal with universal links
Consider what is the user experience?
Photo Credit: Don LaVange

What crawl tools or crawl errors you can expect?
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Photo Credit: James Marvin PhelpsPhoto Credit: strange little woman on stream

Google has a custom search
console for App Indexing that
allows you to fetch deep links.
You have two options for
testing the links:
1) Google Play APK
2) Upload your APK
Fetch as Google to Test your App Indexing

As per desktop fetch as Google
you can drill into your URL to
see a more detailed report.
You can see here is a successful
crawl resulted in the page
rendering correctly.

Oh yeah you might want to
actually see how Google views
your app page.
Triggering items such as popups
for Googlebot will usually end in
crawling issues. Googlebot is
getting smarter but don’t make
it too hard for them!

• You can exclude specific pages
from the App-Indexing or app
notifications from showing in App
search results
• Create a noindex.xml file and
reference the noindex.xml in your
app’s AndroidManifest.xml file
Control Indexing (advanced Android only option)

• You can see from the chart the
number of App-Indexing pages is
continuing to grow.
• It’s important you keep an eye on
the pages with errors as that will
hold your App-Indexing
performance back.
• Be aware the error reporting in the
crawl dashboard is not the most
accurate or current.
Crawl Status Reports can help you understand traction

• Your number of App Indexed
Pages does have an impact on your
App-Indexing performance
• The number of pages with errors
does have an impact on your App-
Indexing performance
Crawl Status Reports can help you understand failures

• If you screw up your App-Indexing
implementation you can expect to
see a gradual decline in clicks
showing in Search Analytics.
• When you fix or improve your App-
Indexing implementation you will
usually see an improvement clicks
first.
Search Analytics can help you understand impact
Source: Google Search Console (excludingTablets)

• Package not found – Google couldn’t find your APK in Google Play Store
• Url unsupported – failed to launch the application
• Content mismatch – text doesn’t have to be identical but topic should be
the same and user should be able to accomplish same task as on web
• Overused URLs – you probably screwed up and mapped all the URLs to one
page, easily done with App-Indexing API
• Back button violation – requires that a user be able to click back to SERPs
• Removed from index – pages in your app that don’t meet standards
Major App Crawl Errors

Tracking impacts of App-Indexing
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Photo Credit: James Marvin PhelpsPhoto Credit: GLAS-8

• Track app-indexing within Google
Analytics is a bit of a difficult thing
currently.
• No official support for tracking
Deep Links at this point, so you
have to do some work arounds to
capture the required data.
• Benefit of tracking App-Indexing in
GA is that you can do user
engagement analysis and compare
against mobile organic visitors.
Currently GA doesn’t support App-Indexing

• One tracking solution uses custom
dimensions that import tags from
your UTM tags you add to the
deep links.
• You can see that the clicks
recorded by Search Console and
visits in GA don’t appear to match
More Information:
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2709828
Tracking App-Indexing with custom dimensions
Source: Google Search Console & Google Analytics

• A better technical solution is to
update your Android App’s
manifest to listen for the
INSTALL_REFERRER
• Clicks in Search Console mostly
match visits recorded in Google
Analytics
More Information:
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/android/v4/
campaigns#general-campaigns
Tracking App-Indexing with custom Install_Referrer
Source: Google Search Console & Google Analytics

Results achieved with App-Indexing
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Photo Credit: James Marvin PhelpsPhoto Credit: Jerald Jackson

If users already have your app they
have a seamless experience into your
app.
This can be important if you haven’t
yet built a responsive website or your
responsive website experience is
lacking features your app already has.
How it looks when they have your app installed
Blue Arrow Icon Credit: designed by Freepik.com

• What’s holding you back?
• Only using 1 of 3 indexing options
• Haven’t indexed everything
• Had content mismatch errors
• Share of each page type showing
for App-Indexing skewed
compared to desktop
App-Indexing clicks grew fairly quickly

• This is what is show if you are
doing app indexing but the user
doesn’t yet have the app installed.
• Clicking the install button currently
shifts you away to the play store
but it seems Google is testing
keeping them in the SERPs
App-Indexing Install Widget
Blue Arrow Icon Credit: designed by Freepik.com

• Google search console provides a
breakdown of how many App-
Indexing searches have resulted in
clicking on the install button.
• The amount of clicks on the install
button is lower than expected but
still additional FREE organic
downloads of your app.
• Current experience is not ideal
pushing users off the SERPs to the
app store
How many searches end with a click on install button?

• A larger app install base means
potentially more people may see
App-Indexing results
• App-Indexing can be supported by
App download campaigns
• App-Indexing can be supported by
ASO campaigns
App-Indexing traffic is influenced by app install base

• If your overall organic traffic is
increasing you have more
opportunities to show App-
Indexing results
• App-Indexing traffic can also be
influenced by external factors such
as competitors and AdWords
App-Indexing benefits from improving organic visibility

• Typically the Install Button link has
the highest visibility
• App-Indexing results don’t always
show higher than other organic
results
• App-Indexing results don’t always
show to users
• App-Indexing results can show a
+1.01 to +1.52 higher position in
SERPs
App-Indexing organic visibility can be volatile

• Great results can look like the
results in the chart where both the
App-Indexing & Install Button
results are shown significantly
higher than standard mobile
version.
• Great App-Indexing results can
show a +2.51 to +3.88 higher
position in SERPs
What does great App-Indexing results look like?

It’s taken a while to get some of the
technology companies onboard with
tracking visibility and impact of App-
Indexing.
It’s now possible to track apps within
your search metrics projects and I
expect other platforms with
AWRCloud and SEMRush will follow.
Platforms like SearchMetrics are surfacing some insights

What’s next?
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Photo Credit: James Marvin PhelpsPhoto Credit: Pacheco

• Google App-Indexing for iOS9+
requires implementation of
Universal Links
• Previously it only showed for
logged-in Chrome users now it will
show for logged-in Safari users
• Going forward iOS App-Indexing
doesn’t require meta tagging just
requires app-to-site association
• Google App-Indexing will drop
support for older iOS7-8
Google App-Indexing for iOS supports iOS9+

• Mobile results may show App only
results
• Your search results could be
influenced by other users with
similar apps.
• Your competitors might be shown
less if users more engaged within
your app
• Your desktop experience could be
influenced by your mobile app
usage.
App-Indexing will likely expand as adoption increases

• Progressive Web Apps
• Offline features
• Offline storage
• Add web app to home screen
• Access your phone’s camera
• Push notifications
• Supported by Chrome & Firefox
• Requires HTTPs
• Google could show them in Play App store
Progressive Web Apps blur line between Native & Apps

LEARN MORE: UPCOMING @SMX EVENTS
THANK YOU!
SEE YOU AT THE NEXT #SMX

Firebase App-Indexing - SMX London 2016

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