Get Your App Indexed by Google
Oct 27, 2015 
2 mins 
Most apps made are never even downloaded. Getting visibility for your app can be difficult. But it’s not impossible. Your app content can be indexed through deep linking.
Right now indexing your app applies to app content that is similar to webpage content in regards to ranking in mobile search.
Don’t tune out if you don’t have this duplicate content yet. Indexing for app-only content isn’t far away.
Bridget Randolph at Moz breaks down how to implement deep links to be indexed.
The basic process is only three steps:
- Support HTTP deep links in your mobile app. For iOS you will need to do this by setting up support for “Universal Links.” “Universal Links” are what Apple calls HTTP links that have a single URL which can open both a specific page on a website and the corresponding view in an app.
Note: At this point, you can register your app with Google, associate it with your website and stop there—as long as you are using the same URLs for your web content and your app content, they should be able to automatically crawl, index, and attempt to rank your app content based on your website’s structure. However, implementing App Indexing and explicitly mapping your web content to your app content using on-page markup can provide additional benefits and allow for a bit more control. Therefore, I recommend following the full process, if possible.
- Implement Google App Indexing using the App Indexing API for Android, or by integrating the App Indexing SDK for iOS 9.
- Explicitly map your web pages to their corresponding app screens using either a rel=alternate link element on the individual page, by referencing the app URLs in your XML sitemaps, or by using schema.org markup.
If you are a developer or need a more in-depth breakdown of this process (for Android and iOS) get more info here.
