Android app content indexing now available for all developers

Webmaster Level: Any

Do you have not only a website, but also an Android application? Now you can connect one to another so that users of smartphones and tablets can easily find application content directly in Google search results.

Links to application content in search results help you find your content faster and more often launch your application for those who already have it installed. Now you can show users the most appropriate content in the most appropriate way. By linking certain pages of the site with the corresponding content of the application, you get the opportunity to influence whether your users go to the site or application.



Hundreds of application developers already use application indexing. Among them are already the first developers from Russia, such as, for example, the Poster. At the Google I / O conference, we presented many new features that simplify the placement of links to the site in the application, the connection of the site’s pages with the application settings, tracking the effectiveness and possible errors.

Practical implementation is very easy

We have greatly simplified the indexing of application content. If your application supports “external binding” with HTTP, follow these steps:

1. Add Web Content Link Support to the Application
2. Link the site to the application
3. Done!

Having indexed your URLs, we will identify the application’s connection with the site and can begin to show links to application content in the search results on smartphones.

We can detect and index the links to the content of your application ourselves, but it would be useful to publish them as well. The publication is simply necessary if the application supports only a special scheme for creating such links. You can publish links in one of the following ways:

• Add the element to the tag of the relevant web pages or to the Sitemap and specify the application URI in it. Read more on how to do this on our developer site.
• Use the App Indexing API

In addition, a new tool has appeared in Webmaster Tools for finding errors related to indexing application content. The new section displays the type of error detected for the site-application pair, as well as examples of problematic application URIs.



We provide detailed troubleshooting instructions, including a QR code with a link to the content of the application, so that you can quickly open and view it on your smartphone or tablet. Finally, so that you do not miss anything, if errors occur, we will send you notifications.



Try providing the content for your indexing app. If you have any questions, please refer to the help forum for webmasters , and, of course, continue to discuss interesting examples and implementation details inour webmaster community .

Posted by Maria Moeva, Webmaster Trends Analyst