On Friday, Google announced Android Studio 2.0 (Beta), the latest release of its official Android IDE.
Among the new features are some helpful additions for app indexing, which became a ranking signal in search results last year.
“Adding App Indexing into your app helps you re-engage your users,” says product manager Jamal Eason in a blog post (via Search Engine Roundtable). “In the first preview of Android Studio 2.0 you could add indexing code stubs into your code. With the beta release you can now test and validate your URL links in your app all within the IDE.”
“Supporting app indexing is now even easier with Android Studio 2.0. App Indexing puts your app in front of users who use Google Search,” he says. “It works by indexing the URL patterns you provide in your app manifest and using API calls from your app to make content within your app available to both existing and new users. Specifically, when you support URLs for your app content, your users can go directly to those links from Google Search results on their device.”
Last year, Google app indexing came into its own with the company officially making it a ranking signal and implementing it in iOS.
Now, Google has announced a refresh of Android app-indexing crawl errors data in Search Console, simplifying the error types it shows.
There are now three error types that appear in the App Crawl Status report: Package not found, URI unsupported, and Removed from index. The first two are unchanged, but the third is new.
Regarding the Removed From Index error type, Google says, “These are app pages that don’t meet our technical guidelines — for example, users get redirected to the home page or the app crashes when the user attempts to open the deep link.”
“To fix this, check the example URIs both in Fetch as Google and on an actual device, and make sure your app doesn’t crash on opening, the deep pages don’t redirect to the homepage, and the content is equivalent,” it says. “Once you fix the issues and we recrawl your app pages, these deep links from Google search to your app will be reexamined.”
Google has reset the data in the report so you can see updated stats for the three error types since December 11.
The Google Webmaster Central Help Forum section for app indexing is available here, should you need further assistance.
Last month, Google made some changes to its App Indexing docs, which you might want to take a look at.
App Indexing has become a very important thing to take into consideration and pay attention to when it comes to Google search on mobile devices and optimizing for that. This year, Google added it as a ranking signal and even expanded it as one since then. It also plays into other things such as the new Google Now on Tap feature of the latest Android release.
Google is now reportedly indexing Facebook’s mobile app as part of its app indexing efforts.
Google has been encouraging app developers to utilize its app indexing resources to enable mobile users to get to content within apps from Google search results. Google has even made app indexing a ranking signal.
Apparently Facebook wasn’t getting involved until now. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Facebook is now allowing Google to crawl in-app content. Of course the content is the same stuff Google was already accessing on the web version, such as public profile information. From the report:
The agreement means that results from Google searches on smartphones will display some content from Facebook’s app, including public profile information. The listings will appear as “deep links” that will take users to the relevant part of the Facebook app, the spokeswoman said.
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Google can’t show content shared through logged-in and private Facebook app sessions, meaning it is still locked out of most information inside the walled garden of Facebook’s social network. For those searches, users will have to use Facebook’s search service, which it recently updated.
It’s unclear from the Journal’s report whether Google is indexing Facebook’s app on just Android, just iOS, or both. The ability to index Android apps has been around for a longer time, but Google recently expanded its efforts to include iOS.
For more on app indexing, view our related coverage here.
Back in February, Google announced two major mobile ranking signals back in February. The one that got the most attention and the nickname “Mobilegeddon” was a site’s “mobile-friendliness”. The other one was app indexing. Google would show content from apps to users when they had the apps installed.
In April, Google announced that it had indexed 30 billion links within apps and that it would start showing Android users apps in search results even if the user doesn’t already have the app installed.
Now, Google reportedly adding a new ranking factor for apps that use the App Indexing API. This was announced at the SMX East conference. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable reports:
On the panel, Mariya Moeva from Google announced several things around App Indexing, but got everyone’s attention pretty quickly when she announced there is an additional ranking boost, on top of the original app ranking boost, for using the App Indexing API.
Why is there a new boost? Mariya explained that with the new API, Google is able to know start and end times of use of the app and pages within the app, amongst other important data points.
At first, Google only made app indexing available on Android, but in May, they started indexing some iOS app content.
This week, the company posted new documentation for that, which you can find here.
The Google Developers YouTube channel has a series called “Coffee with a Googler,” in which various Googlers share insights into various dev topics in a casual interview setting. The latest one focuses on what is one of Google’s newest mobile ranking signals – App Indexing.
App indexing gives businesses a new way to tell Google that their content should be ranking higher and to get their mobile apps in front of more users by way of the content within them. It’s something that many haven’t done yet, but more will thanks to the new opportunity Google is giving them.
Google Developer Advocate Laurence Moroney writes on the Google Developers Blog:
In this episode of Coffee with a Googler, Laurence meets with Jennifer Lin from the App Indexing team, who demonstrates the possibilities!
Jennifer shares that Google has indexed over 50 billion deep links into apps, with searches returning these links to users, taking them directly into your app. She shares how the Daily Mail newspaper in the UK saw a 22% boost in search impressions, and app users spent around 20% more time reading and sharing articles when they came in via a deep link from Search. Additionally, Tabelog, a premier restaurant review app and site in Japan, saw an increase of 9.6% in page views within their app, and a 63% increase in Search impressions after adding their app to the index.
You can find Google’s App Indexing site here. Our ongoing coverage of App Indexing-related news is available here.
Earlier this year, Google announced two major pieces of news with regards to how it ranks search results on mobile devices. The one that got the majority of industry coverage was related to the mobile-friendliness of sites. The other was that Google started using app indexing as a ranking signal, and has even expanded that signal since the initial announcement.
This week, Google hosted an hour-long “office-hours hangout” (via Search Engine Roundtable) on the topic answering numerous questions about the topic, so if this is something you want to take advantage of (and if you have an app, why wouldn’t you?), you’ll probably want to give it a watch.
App indexing and related efforts from Google should mean increased discovery for new and existing apps and the content within them. Etsy sellers appear to already be benefiting.
Last month, Google shared findings of an internal study on interstitials, which it had previously implied could start negatively impacting people’s search rankings.
Do you consider interstitials to be negative to the user experience? Are there ways in which they can make the user experience better? Share your thoughts in the comments.
They looked at behavior related to their own use of interstitials, specifically with the Google+ mobile site, which utilized one encouraging users to install the app. 9% of visits to the interstitial page resulted in a “Get App” button being pressed. 69% of visits abandoned the page. They neither went to the app store nor continued to the mobile website. Presumably they were so annoyed they just didn’t feel like going any further.
“While 9% sounds like a great CTR for any campaign, we were much more focused on the number of users who had abandoned our product due to the friction in their experience,” Google said. “With this data in hand, in July 2014, we decided to run an experiment and see how removing the interstitial would affect actual product usage. We added a Smart App Banner to continue promoting the native app in a less intrusive way, as recommended in the Avoid common mistake section of our Mobile SEO Guide. The results were surprising.”
1-day active users on the mobile site increased by 17% and Google+ iOS native app installs were mostly unaffected (-2%). They didn’t report the Android numbers because most Android devices come with the app pre-installed.
“Based on these results, we decided to permanently retire the interstitial,” Google said. “We believe that the increase in users on our product makes this a net positive change, and we are sharing this with the hope that you will reconsider the use of promotional interstitials. Let’s remove friction and make the mobile web more useful and usable!”
When Google published its findings, Yelp CEO and frequent Google critic Jeremy Stoppelman blasted the company on Twitter:
@jeremys is this about protecting consumers or protecting their search monopoly?
Now, he’s elaborating on this in a new blog post. This wouldn’t be much of a surprise if he were to do so on the Yelp blog, but interestingly his post comes in the form of a guest article on Search Engine Land, one of the most widely-read blogs in the search industry.
He begins by talking about something Steve Jobs said five years ago (which would have been five iPhone generations ago) about how people prefer apps to mobile browsers. Stoppelman goes on:
A point Jobs left unsaid — perhaps because it is so obvious — was that in order for consumers to enjoy the advantageous experience apps provide them, they need to know the app exists. In other words, those apps must be somehow discoverable.
While many users find apps by browsing inside an app store, another critical way they discover new apps is through mobile search engines, like Google. In this way, mobile search indeed serves a critical function to users: offering a bridge from the less desirable world of mobile Web browsing to a new world inside apps.
Note that a mobile Google search for Yelp brings up an install button for Yelp’s app at the very top of the page.
Stoppelman says that after people “cross the bridge” from mobile web to apps, they “likely don’t go back,” which he says Google sees as a threat to its core business of search and that apps eliminate the need for the middleman, which would be Google.
He criticizes the Google study and says that what it really is is “Google foreshadowing a search ranking penalty designed to slow users’ natural migration away from Web search towards apps, a major consumer trend that Steve Jobs accurately predicted.”
Google has actually been talking about interstitials as a negative signal since before this study came out. Google also introduced two very clear positive ranking signals this year in mobile-friendliness and app indexing. One encourages the use of apps and makes them easier for people to use. This way, if you come across a Yelp result in Google, you can go right to the content in that app. Google is also utilizing this app indexing for something called Google Now on Tap, which brings users app functionality while they’re already using other apps.
As Google explained this earlier this year, “If you’re chatting with a friend about where to get dinner, Google can bring you quick info about the place your friend recommends. You’ll also see other apps on your phone, like OpenTable or Yelp, so you can easily make a reservation, read reviews or check out the menu.”
Search Engine Land notes that some opinions in Stoppelman’s article may be those of the guest author.
Readers, which again, are primarily industry folks, had a lot of criticisms for Stoppelman’s article in the comments. Some maintained that interstitials make for bad experiences. Others criticized his approach such as not backing up his stance with data of his own. One went so far as to slam Yelp’s interstitial specifically.
It’s a good time to be an Etsy seller as far as visibility in Google search is concerned. Earlier this year, Google announced two major pieces of news with regards to how it ranks search results on mobile devices. The one that got the majority of industry coverage was related to the mobile-friendliness of sites. The other was that Google started using app indexing as a ranking signal, and has even expanded that signal since the initial announcement.
Etsy has a very popular mobile app, and Google’s app indexing signal seems to be benefiting its content greatly. In fact, Google specifically named Etsy as a developer that is seeing a boost in traffic from it.
Google held its quarterly earnings conference call last week, and during that, Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer Omid Kordestani had this to say about the company’s mobile efforts (via Seeking Alpha’s transcript of the call):
More Google searches now take place on mobile devices than on computers in ten countries, including the U.S. and Japan, two of our largest markets. And we know that when people search on their mobile phones, they’re looking for immediacy and action. In fact, 30% of mobile queries are related to location and our efforts around local search are helping consumers to find relevant information fast.
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Our teams have made great strides to help users find what they need within third-party apps through indexing. We now have 50 billion links within apps index and 25% of signed in Google searches on Android now return deep links, taking users right to content within an app or to a link so they can install it. We also recently started showing such links in search results on iOS, developers like Etsy are really seeing a boost in traffic as a result of deep linking. We also added now cards for more than 100 apps like OpenTable and Spotify and we have extended Google Voice actions to third party developers, so we can say things like, okay Google listen to MPR.
That Etsy name-drop has proven quite popular among the company’s investors as Etsy shares have “soared” since the call.
Update: Well, the shares are sinking again, but that doesn’t change the fact that Google’s comments are good news for sellers.
Etsy itself went public only a few months ago, and the company has done quite a bit to make its service better for sellers in preparing to do so.
Etsy reported its first quarterly earnings as a public company in May. The company said it would spend more on marketing in the following quarter.
People are spending more and more time with mobile apps, and that includes those that let them buy things. The problem for businesses hoping to break into that increasing app usage is that the number of apps people are using isn’t really growing along with the time they’re spending using apps.
New changes Google has been making could (and should) mean increased discovery for new and existing apps, and could just lead to that number of apps metric increasing as time goes on. It’s going to be challenging to make your business’ app stand out in the crowd, so you should know what kind of app content users are gravitating towards. We’ll look at that in this article.
Are you getting a significant amount of business through mobile apps so far? If not, what do you think needs to change to make it happen? If so, what are the main ways people are discovering your app and/or the content within? Discuss in the comments.
Nielsen released some research showing significant growth trajectory for the time consumers are spending using apps.
“Over the span of just a few years, the concept of app usage has transformed from a novelty to an essential part of the mobile user experience,” the firm says. “With millions of apps now available and more being rolled out every day, there is an app for everyone, regardless of age, race or interest.”
“But while marketers and app developers continue to add functionality and robustness to apps, they also must effectively position them to stand out in an increasingly competitive marketplace,” it adds. “Despite the increase in choices, the number of apps used is staying the same.”
As you may know, Google is now indexing app content in search results. Businesses who follow Google’s protocol for app indexing even get the benefit of a ranking signal. It’s in your best interest to have an app and to have it indexed. At first, Google was only offering this on Android, but has recently started to index content on iOS, though it’s still early days on that. Currently, on Android, anyone can take advantage of app indexing. On iOS, Google is only working with a handful of partners so far, but that will likely open up to everyone else eventually. Luckily, Android has a much bigger piece of the mobile operating system market share since it’s on so many different devices from various manufacturers.
With Google’s changes, users can also discover your app even if they haven’t installed it yet, which is key. They (and others) of course offer app install ads to help you convince more people to get your app on their phone to begin with.
You might want to give this presentation from Google I/O a watch. It’s a session called “Smarter user acquisition with App Indexing, AdWords and Google Analytics”.
Here’s how Google describes it: “Content discovery on mobile isn’t easy. Luckily, this is a familiar problem to Google. With App Indexing on both iOS and Android, you can engage users organically by surfacing app content in the search results page. And on Android specifically, you can even drive app installs for users who don’t have your app. Google’s smart mobile ads platform gives you access to AdWords, the world’s largest network, to find the right users who will install and engage with your app, plus you can gain insights through Google Analytics install attribution to know where your users came from. Discover Google’s variety of approaches to driving app discovery, growth and engagement in this session.”
Even if you can get people to install your app, you face the challenge of getting them to open it and interact with it regularly. Google has been working on some things that can help with that as well.
For one, it now offers app deep linking with Goo.gl. This was announced less than a month ago.
“Once you’ve taken the necessary steps to set up App Indexing for Android and iOS, goo.gl URLs will send users straight to the right page in your app if they have it installed, and everyone else to your website. This will provide additional opportunities for your app users to re-engage with your app,” explained Google software engineer Fabian Schlup. “This feature works for both new short URLs and retroactively, so any existing goo.gl short links to your content will now also direct users to your app.”
You can drive traffic to in-app content through your marketing efforts using such links.
Potentially even more helpful for driving re-engagement from users who have installed your app, is Google Now on Tap. Google announced this at Google I/O. With this feature, users can get to useful content from other apps regardless of what app they’re currently using. It’s driven by context.
An example of how it works would be pulling a movie review from IMDb if the user is looking at movie content from another app or reservations on OpenTable if they’re viewing a restaurant in a different app.
Google says Now on Tap another way to get apps in front of users at the right moment. If you have an app with content that people need to see, well, that applies to you. Luckily, beyond app indexing, there’s nothing else you really have to do to be integrated with Now on Tap. Just have your app indexed by Google.
These are really just potential bonuses of app indexing, but the question remains: what do you need to offer in your app to actually get people to use it and buy from you?
comScore and UPS recently conducted a study looking at what kind of content shoppers find important. The content types are product reviews, Q&A, product and brand videos, and photos submitted of consumers using products. These are good places to start.
Other types of app content shoppers find useful include communities and forums, “trending now” products, the seller’s blog content, and podcasts. You might want to think about using some or all of these things in your app. Luckily, most of this stuff is excellent for appearing in search results.
MarketingCharts put together this graph based on the findings.
That study also concluded that 55% of shoppers value consumer and peer reviews when they’re searching and selecting products to buy. Detailed product information is the most important fact in the search and selection process it found. Other important components cited include the seller’s reputation, return policy, and the use of multiple images or the ability to zoom in on products.
While the above lists what content people value from websites, MarketingCharts notes, “Similar factors are important when shopping via mobile applications. Indeed, product images (54%) and product reviews (53%) are considered the most important retail app features among users, with these followed by relevant search results (50%) and mobile coupons (50%). While the study cautions that ‘apps… aren’t a must for every retailer,’ 4 in 5 mobile shoppers surveyed reported having used a retailer’s app rather than a browser to access a retailer at some point.”
This is all very helpful to know, and can help you make your app more useful to consumers.
Last week, Google revealed that it’s starting to index content from iOS apps as it has been doing for Android. The appearance of such content is rolling out this week, the company said on Thursday.
iOS users will start seeing in-app content from Google’s initial partners in search results when using the Google app or in Chrome for iPhone and iPad when signed in. Users can tap on on search results to open the apps.
Initial partners include: Eat24, Free Dictionary, Huffington Post, OpenTable, Pinterest, SeatGeek, Slideshare, Tapatalk, Yellow Pages, YouTube and Zillow in the U.S., Biblia JFA Offline and Letras in Brazil, Cookpad and Tabelog in Japan, Domain in Australia, and eBay Kleinanzeigen in Germany.
Google says it’s working to add many more.
“Try telling Google ‘I need a reservation at Bombay Cricket Club’ and you’ll see results from the OpenTable app,” suggests product manager Eli Wald. “You can also search for ‘DIY interior design’ and easily explore pinboards on Pinterest. Try ‘buy Giants tickets’ for results including one from the SeatGeek app, or even ask ‘what is the definition of googol’ and see results from The Free Dictionary.”
In addition to all of this, Google is also helping iOS users more easily discover new apps in Google Search like they’re already doing on Android. You can search for things like “word game” and see a list of relvant apps in search results and install them from there.
Google has been experimenting with app indexing for quite a while, but in recent months it has really cranked up the significance of it. Last week, it took that to even greater heights.
App indexing is now a ranking signal in Google’s mobile search results, and last week, Google announced that it’s expanding it to iOS after previously only offering it for Android. As more Google searches are now taking place on mobile devices than on computers in ten counties, more businesses are probably going to want to consider having their own apps and making sure their content is indexed in Google’s search results.
At Google I/O, Google had a session called “Smarter user acquisition with App Indexing, AdWords and Google Analytics”. You might want to watch that one. It’s about 40 minutes long. Here’s the official description of the session:
Content discovery on mobile isn’t easy. Luckily, this is a familiar problem to Google. With App Indexing on both iOS and Android, you can engage users organically by surfacing app content in the search results page. And on Android specifically, you can even drive app installs for users who don’t have your app. Google’s smart mobile ads platform gives you access to AdWords, the world’s largest network, to find the right users who will install and engage with your app, plus you can gain insights through Google Analytics install attribution to know where your users came from. Discover Google’s variety of approaches to driving app discovery, growth and engagement in this session.
You can watch the whole thing right here:
Obviously Google I/O has provided a lot of important content for Android developers. Here’s a look at four important sessions from the event that you should check out if you get a chance. Here’s the entire opening keynote.
Earlier, Google announced that it is finally expanding its app indexing efforts to iOS apps after only having offered it for Android until now.
Since the n, Google has come out and announced that goo.gl short links will now function as a single link for you to use to all your content, whether it’s in your Android app, iOS app, or website.
“Once you’ve taken the necessary steps to set up App Indexing for Android and iOS, goo.gl URLs will send users straight to the right page in your app if they have it installed, and everyone else to your website. This will provide additional opportunities for your app users to re-engage with your app,” explains Google software engineer Fabian Schlup. “This feature works for both new short URLs and retroactively, so any existing goo.gl short links to your content will now also direct users to your app.”
You can integrate the URL shortener API into your app’s share flow to take advantage of the feature a well. This way, users will be able to share links that automatically redirect accordingly. Others will be able to embed links in their sites and apps which deep link directly to your app.
“Take Google Maps as an example,” explains Schlup. “With the new cross-platform goo.gl links, the Maps share button generates one link that provides the best possible sharing experience for everyone. When opened, the link auto-detects the user’s platform and if they have Maps installed. If the user has the app installed, the short link opens the content directly in the Android or iOS Maps app. If the user doesn’t have the app installed or is on desktop, the short link opens the page on the Maps website.”
You can set up app deep linking on goo.gl by participating in app indexing for Android and iOS and using the API with your app’s share flow, email campaigns, etc. That part’s optional.
Google just took its App Indexing initiative to the next level with the announcement that it is bringing app indexing to iOS apps.
This is huge news considering that many app developers build for iOS before Android if they even bother to build for Android at all. Google recently named app indexing as a ranking signal in mobile search results as well.
We’ve been helping users discover relevant content from Android apps in Google search results for a while now. Starting today, we’re bringing App Indexing to iOS apps as well. This means users on both Android and iOS will be able to open mobile app content straight from Google Search.
Indexed links from an initial group of apps we’ve been working with will begin appearing on iOS in search results both in the Google App and Chrome for signed-in users globally in the coming weeks.
Earlier this week, Google announced that it has rebranded Google Webmaster Tools as Google Search Console. The company did not announce any new features to accompany the name change, but it didn’t take them long to unveil the first updates to the product under the new brand.
On Friday, Google announced the addition of new reports to show how Google understands and treats app content in search results. If you have an Android app, you can open Search Console, and enter your app name. You’ll have to use your Google Play account to let it know you have access to the app. If you don’t, you’ll need to ask the owner to verify it and add you. You’ll also have to associate your site with your app, which is required for App Indexing to work. Google notes that it also helps with understanding and ranking app content better.
There’s a new Search Analytics report, which shows detailed info on top queries, app pages, and traffic by country. It includes a “comprehensive” set of filters so you can narrow down to a specific query type or region, or sort by clicks, impressions, CTR, and positions.
“Use the Search Analytics report to compare which app content you consider most important with the content that actually shows up in search and gets the most clicks,” Google writes in a blog post. “If they match, you’re on the right track! Your users are finding and liking what you want them to see. If there’s little overlap, you may need to restructure your navigation, or make the most important content easier to find. Also worth checking in this case: have you provided deep links to all the app content you want your users to find?”
The Crawl Errors report will show the type and number of errors it detects with your app content. There’s also a new alpha version of the Fetch as Google tool for apps to let you see if an app URI works and how Google renders it.
“It can also be useful for comparing the app content with the webpage content to debug errors such as content mismatch,” says Google. “In many cases, the mismatch errors are caused by blocked resources within the app or by pop-ups asking users to sign in or register. Now you can see and resolve these issues.”
Google announced app indexing as a ranking signal earlier this year at the same time it announced its mobile-friendly update. It just went into effect earlier. At first it was only for signed in mobile users who had the apps installed on their devices. Google has since expanded the signal to include all Android users. It said in April it had indexed 30 billion links within apps.
Google announced on Thursday that it has indexed 30 billion links within apps, and that it will now show Android users apps in search results even if the user hasn’t already installed them. This is the latest move by the search engine to further integrate the app ecosystem into search and improve mobile results.
Are you taking advantage of Google’s app indexing? If so, have you noticed a boost in your rankings? Let us know in the comments.
“You’ve invested time and effort into making your app an awesome experience, and we want to help people find the great content you’ve created,” said product manager Lawrence Chang in a blog post. “App Indexing has already been helping people engage with your Android app after they’ve installed it — we now have 30 billion links within apps indexed. Starting this week, people searching on Google can also discover your app if they haven’t installed it yet. If you’ve implemented App Indexing, when indexed content from your app is relevant to a search done on Google on Android devices, people may start to see app install buttons for your app in search results. Tapping these buttons will take them to the Google Play store where they can install your app, then continue straight on to the right content within it.”
“With the addition of these install links, we are starting to use App Indexing as a ranking signal for all users on Android, regardless of whether they have your app installed or not,” he adds. “We hope that Search will now help you acquire new users, as well as re-engage your existing ones.”
Google announced in February that it had already begun using app indexing as a ranking signal for signed in users who had the apps installed on their devices. They must have liked the results since they’re expanding it into include apps that the user doesn’t have installed.
This comes at an interesting time as the European Commission just announced that it has opened an investigation into Google’s Android business. Complainants will no doubt point to this as a sign that Google is using its dominant search position to get people to focus more on Android as a development platform. Increased search visibility certainly seems like a pretty major plus.
The Commission said the investigation would “focus on whether Google has breached EU antitrust rules by hindering the development and market access of rival mobile operating systems, applications and services to the detriment of consumers and developers of innovative services and products.”
“Smartphones, tablets and similar devices play an increasing role in many people’s daily lives and I want to make sure the markets in this area can flourish without anticompetitive constraints imposed by any company,” said EU Commissioner in charge of competition policy Margrethe Vestager.
Google first began testing app indexing in the fall of 2013. Googlebot began indexing content in Android apps, and gave webmasters the ability to let Google know which app they’d like Google to index through their existing sitemaps file and through Webmaster tools.
At the time, app indexing had no effect on ranking. At first, Google only indexed a select few apps, including Allthecooks, AllTrails, Beautylish, Etsy, Expedia, Flixster, Healthtap, IMDB, Moviefone, Newegg, OpenTable, and Trulia. Last April, Google announced that it had enabled it for over 24 more applications, including: 500px, AOL, BigOven, Bleacher Report, Booking.com, Eventbrite, Glassdoor, Goodreads, Huffington Post, Merriam-Webster, Pinterest, Realtor.com, Seeking Alpha, TalkAndroid, TheFreeDictionary, The Journal, TripAdvisor, Tumblr, Urbanspoon, Wattpad, YP, Zagat, Zappos and Zillow.
They also made it available globally in English. The following month, they made it available in more languages. At Google I/O last year, they announced a slew of additional apps, and opened app indexing up to all Android developers. If you have an Android app, you can participate.
Also at Google I/O, the company held a session called “The Future of Apps and Search,” which discussed bringing search and apps together to give users a better experience. In light of the ranking news, you might want to give that a watch:
Google tells those who wish to get started with app indexing to go here or to learn about other ways developers can integrate with search here.
To get started, visit g.co/AppIndexing and to learn more about the other ways you can integrate with Google Search, visit g.co/DeveloperSearch.”
In other mobile ranking signal news, Google is going to start using mobile-friendliness as a factor on April 21.
Do you expect to get more traffic from Google as a result of new mobile-related ranking signals? Discuss.
Last week, Google made two announcements about how it will rank search results on mobile devices going forward. The one that has received the greatest amount of attention is the inclusion of a mobile-friendly ranking signal, which will go into effect beginning April 21. This gives sites time to make sure their sites meet Googles criteria for being mobile-friendly, and to avoid a potential rankings hit. More on how to make your site more mobile-friendly here.
The other announcement was that Google is now using information from indexed apps as a ranking factor for signed-in users who have the app installed. That’s already in effect.
Google said that as a result of this particular factor, it may now surface content from indexed apps more prominently in search.
Google first began testing app indexing in the fall of 2013. Googlebot began indexing content in Android apps, and gave webmasters the ability to let Google know which app they’d like Google to index through their existing sitemaps file and through Webmaster tools.
As the company explained at the time:
“Searchers on smartphones experience many speed bumps that can slow them down. For example, any time they need to change context from a web page to an app, or vice versa, users are likely to encounter redirects, pop-up dialogs, and extra swipes and taps. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could give your users the choice of viewing your content either on the website or via your app, both straight from Google’s search results?”
“If both the webpage and the app contents are successfully indexed, Google will then try to show deep links to your app straight in our search results when we think they’re relevant for the user’s query and if the user has the app installed. When users tap on these deep links, your app will launch and take them directly to the content they need.”
Google said back then that app indexing would not impact ranking. Now it does.
At first, Google only indexed a select few apps, including Allthecooks, AllTrails, Beautylish, Etsy, Expedia, Flixster, Healthtap, IMDB, Moviefone, Newegg, OpenTable, and Trulia. Last April, Google announced that it had enabled it for over 24 more applications, including: 500px, AOL, BigOven, Bleacher Report, Booking.com, Eventbrite, Glassdoor, Goodreads, Huffington Post, Merriam-Webster, Pinterest, Realtor.com, Seeking Alpha, TalkAndroid, TheFreeDictionary, The Journal, TripAdvisor, Tumblr, Urbanspoon, Wattpad, YP, Zagat, Zappos and Zillow.
They also made it available globally in English. The following month, they made it available in more languages. At Google I/O last year, they announced a slew of additional apps, and opened app indexing up to all Android developers. If you have an Android app, you can participate. At the time, they also made some design tweaks to how apps appear.
Also at Google I/O, the company held a session called “The Future of Apps and Search,” which discussed bringing search and apps together to give users a better experience. In light of the ranking news, you might want to give that a watch if you don’t already have app indexing implemented.
Here’s a much shorter overview on getting your app in the Google index:
In December, Google said clicks on app deep links jumped by 10x the prior quarter, with 15% of signed-in Google searches on Android now returning deep links. These numbers have likely only increased since then.
There are four basic steps for enabling users who have your app installed to open your content within the app from Google search results: add deep link support, verify your app’s official site on the Google Play Console, provide deep links, and check for errors in Webmaster Tools, so you can fix them.
You can find the documentation for adding deep linking support here. You have to specify intent filters in your app manifest that define how to reach specific content inside your app. Google walks you through this process in that link.
You’ll then want to test your deep links using the Android Debug Bridge, which is a command line tool that lets you communicate with an emulator instance or connected Android-powered device.
You’ll also want to restrict access to parts of your app content. This involves including a noindex.xml file in your app to indicate which deep links shouldn’t be indexed. You’ll be able to specify a list of URIs to exclude, or a list of URI prefixes. As Google notes, it’s similar to how the robots noindex meta tag works for websites.
After you’ve added support, you’ll need to verify your website. Sign in to your Google Play Developer Console, click All Applications, select the app you want to verify, and select Services & APIs from the left menu. Under “App Indexing from Gogole Search,” cliick “Verify website.” Type your web address, and click “Verify”. Then, go to Webmaster Tools (requires “owner” permissions), and click “All Messages” from the left menu. Open the verification request message, approve it, and then your app will appear on the Associates page of your WMT account. You can then provide deep links for each web page that has a corresponding deep link.
After verification, you’ll want to provide deep links for each page that has a corresponding deep link either on each page of your site or in your sitemaps. You can ffind documentation on this here.
When adding deep links to your sitemap or webiste, Google says they should only be included for canonical web URLs, and to remember to specify an app deep link for your homepage. Not all website URLs in a sitemap need to have a corresponding app deep link, don’t include them for those that aren’t supported by your app. News sites using News Sitemaps should include deep link annotations in them as well as in general sitemaps. Google also says not to provide annotations for deep links that execute native ARM code. This enables app indexing to work for all platforms, it says.
“When Google indexes content from your app, your app will need to make HTTP requests that it usually makes under normal operation,” Google’s Michael Xu said in a blog post last April. “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.”
Information related to app indexing that Google shows in Webmaster Tools includes: errors in indexed pages within apps, weekly clicks and impressions from app deep links via Google search; and stats on your sitemap (if that’s how you implemented the app deep links). Google says it will be adding a lot more.
There are two new ways to track performance for your app deep links. Google will send a weekly clicks and impressions update to the Message center in in WMT, and you can now track how much traffic app deep links drive to your app using referrer information (referrer extra in the ACTION_VIEW intent). The company said in December it was working to integrate this info with Google Analytics.
“Blocked resources are one of the top reasons for the ‘content mismatch’ errors you see in Webmaster Tools’ Crawl Errors report,” said Google Webmaster Trends analyst Mariya Moeva. “We need access to all the resources necessary to render your app page. This allows us to assess whether your associated web page has the same content as your app page.”
“To help you identify errors when indexing your app, we’ll send you messages for all app errors we detect, and will also display most of them in the ‘Android apps’ tab of the Crawl errors report,” Moeva said.
At the time, Google announced three new error types that go along with the existing “content mismatch” and “intent URI not supported” error alerts: APK not found, no first-click free, and back button violation.
Google has an app indexing “codelab” tutorial available here. This will walk you through running a sample app, opening a starter project, identifying deep links, adding intent filters, adding code to handle intent filters, testing intent filters, verifying the Google Play Service version, creating an API client, recording a page view, recording a page view end, testing Autocomplete in Google Search, adding app indexing markup, connecting the app using Google Play Console, verifying the app in Webmaster Tools, and updating robots.txt.
Apps with or without corresponding webpages can use the App Indexing API to notify Google of their deep links. Documentation for this is available here.
There’s also an app indexing checklist here. Additionally, you may want to peruse the FAQ.
For now, Google only supports Android apps for app indexing. While it’s missing a huge chunk of popular apps by not supporting iOS, Android does dominate smart device operating system market share, mainly due to its wide use across a plethora of devices. According to new research from ABI, Android holds 53% of that market share.
In other words, that’s a lot of potential visibility for app content in Google search results. It’s also possible that Google will eventually support iOS apps.
“You’d have to imagine Google will bring support, despite Apple not probably making it easy, to iOS devices,” wrote Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz in December, as he pointed to a hint that Google may do just that.
It’s not a major hint, but a Googler responded to a question in a Webmaster Help forum thread, saying, “app indexing is supported only for Android for now. Stay tuned for updates (:”
Beyond making the content from existing Android apps more visible with its new ranking signal, it’s likely that the move will inspire more companies to create Android apps in the first place.
Last week, Google announced the launch of paid search results in Google Play, which will also help app makers gain more exposure. This is only in the pilot stage for now, but will likely become a major feature available to Android users and advertisers.
Google started testing app indexing on Android in October of last year, adding deep links from apps within search results on its operating system. In June, they opened it up to everyone.
On Tuesday, Google provided an update on what’s going on with it, encouraging more webmasters to take advantage. What’s going on with it is that clicks on app deep links jumped by 10x last quarter, according to the company, with 15% of signed-in Google searches on Android now returning deep links.
In other words, the amount of these types of results is growing, and people are clicking on them more, so you might want to get your app in the mix, especially considering that Google is increasingly focusing on a site’s mobile user experience when it comes to ranking mobile results (though they do still take desktop signals into consideration).
Google’s app indexing update includes four steps to monitor app performance and drive user engagement, which include: Give your app developer access to Webmaster Tools; Understand how your app is doing in search results; Make sure key app resources can be crawled; and Watch out for Android App errors. Obviously they go into more detail about how to achieve all of this.
Information related to app indexing that Google shows in Webmaster Tools includes: errors in indexed pages within apps, weekly clicks and impressions from app deep links via Google search; and stats on your sitemap (if that’s how you implemented the app deep links). Google says it will be adding a lot more in the coming months.
There are two new ways to track performance for your app deep links. Google will send a weekly clicks and impressions update to the Message center in in WMT, and you can now track how much traffic app deep links drive to your app using referrer information (referrer extra in the ACTION_VIEW intent). The company says it’s working to integrate this info with Google Analytics.
“Blocked resources are one of the top reasons for the ‘content mismatch’ errors you see in Webmaster Tools’ Crawl Errors report,” says Google Webmaster Trends analyst Mariya Moeva. “We need access to all the resources necessary to render your app page. This allows us to assess whether your associated web page has the same content as your app page.”
“To help you identify errors when indexing your app, we’ll send you messages for all app errors we detect, and will also display most of them in the ‘Android apps’ tab of the Crawl errors report,” Moeva says.
Google has three new error types that go along with the existing “content mismatch” and “intent URI not supported” error alerts: APK not found, no first-click free, and back button violation. Check out the original post for more on all of this.
You can bet that app indexing is only going to become a bigger part of mobile search, so if you have an app, you should probably start paying attention to this stuff. Otherwise, you might find yourself left behind on mobile search. And who knows? That could even affect you on the desktop eventually.
The feature lets Google deliver in-app content in search results on Android devices that have the apps installed. For example, if you have the Wikipedia app installed on your phone, and get a Wikipedia search result, the result can be opened in the app right from the search results page.
Last week, Google announced support for a slew of new apps, and opened up the ability for any developer to participate in app indexing.
They held a session at Google I/O called “The Future of Apps and Search,” which discussed bringing search and apps together to give users a better experience. If you’re interested in participating in app indexing (which you probably should be if you have apps), you better give it a watch. Google posted the video online over the weekend.
Google also announced that app result title links will start taking users directly to the content inside the app when it’s installed. It still provides a link to open the content on the website.
Google also started clustering app results together in search results globally. This is a feature that was available in the U.S. back in December.
The feature enables Google to deliver in-app content in search results on mobile devices (specifically Android devices for now). For example, if you search for “Dee Barnes,” you might get a result from Wikipedia. With app indexing, Google will give you the option to open the app from the result as opposed to going to a mobile web version.
The feature requires app developers to be on board, so Google has announced specific publishers with content in different languages that are now taking advantage of app indexing. These include: Fairfax Domain, MercadoLibre, Letras.Mus.br, Vagalume, Idealo, L’Equipe, Player.fm, Upcoming, Au Feminin, Marmiton, and chip.de.
Google has also translated its developer guidelines into eight more languages (Chinese – traditional, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish), so that should help too.
Google has a form here where you can request to participate in App Indexing. The company notes that it has added a few new apps in the U.S., including Walmart, Tapatalk, and Fancy.
Google promises a session for developers at Google I/O dedicated to “the future of apps and search”.
Internet giants like Google and Facebook are working to make mobile apps more web-like. At Facebook’s recent developer conference, the company announced App Links, which enable apps to link to content within other apps.
Google announced on Thursday that it is testing app indexing with Android apps. This, the company says, will create a seamless user experience across mobile apps and websites, when it comes to search results pages. With more and more searches coming from mobile devices, the addition of app indexing is long overdue.
Do you expect Google’s new app indexing to change your search strategy? Do you intend to focus more on mobile apps? Let us know in the comments.
Googlebot will now crawl and index content within Android apps, meaning that Google searches from mobile devices can point users directly to relevant content in your app, as opposed to your website, when it makes sense to do so.
“Searchers on smartphones experience many speed bumps that can slow them down,” writes product manager Lawrence Chang in a blog post. “For example, any time they need to change context from a web page to an app, or vice versa, users are likely to encounter redirects, pop-up dialogs, and extra swipes and taps. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could give your users the choice of viewing your content either on the website or via your app, both straight from Google’s search results?”
“If both the webpage and the app contents are successfully indexed, Google will then try to show deep links to your app straight in our search results when we think they’re relevant for the user’s query and if the user has the app installed,” Chang explains. “When users tap on these deep links, your app will launch and take them directly to the content they need.”
Android users in the U.S. (with the Google Search App 2.8+ and Android 4.1+) will start seeing deep links from apps in their search results in the coming weeks. App indexing is still in the testing phase, however, and Google is starting out with apps from Allthecooks, AllTrails, Beautylish, Etsy, Expedia, Flixster, Healthtap, IMDB, Moviefone, Newegg, OpenTable, and Trulia.
Still, you can get the process started to enable Google to index content from your apps. Google has a form you can fill out if you want to get in on the testing.
Google says app indexing will not impact ranking. In a Q&A, the company says, “App indexing does not impact on your website’s ranking in the search results page. It does affect how a search result of your website is displayed, namely by adding a button to open the content in your app if the user has the app installed.”
While it may not have a direct effect on ranking in the sense that just because you’re pointing Google to app content rather than web content it will make a difference, apps are sometimes more user-friendly than web content, particularly on mobile devices, and it’s hard to see Google not taking that into account when ranking results.
In other words, if you are able to provide a better user experience from your mobile app than you are from your webpage, why wouldn’t Google rank it better? It’s something to think about, and could lead to more businesses placing more focus on mobile apps. The industry will no doubt be watching how the results appear as Google shows more of them.
Of course, the user has to have the app installed to access its content, which is obviously a significant barrier. Some will likely have more success if they have a presence in other popular apps. It will be especially interesting for Ecommerce merchants, for example, to see how content from apps like Etsy do in search results.
“Just like crawling a website, Google uses many signals to determine the frequency at which your app is crawled,” Google says in the Q&A. “As a rule of thumb, it will be a similar frequency at which your website is crawled.”
Good to know.
Google also notes that like web-only sitemaps, you can have more than one sitemap for your app content.
The company is working on surfacing relevant information in Webmaster Tools about letting webmasters know if their app indexing is actually working.
To get started, you’ll need to annotate app links for the pages on your site that can be opened in your app to specify how the content can be opened in the app, and add intent filters for deep linking. You can check out the documentation here.
It’s going to be interesting to see if this has any substantial impact on Android app development in general, and if Google starts indexing content in apps on other platforms.
