Google are taking significant stride in in closing the gap between app and web content to make mobile interactions more seamless. Out of the many developments in this area, let’s shed some light on the app indexing strategies and deep linking opportunities.
App landing pages are the ones that normally get indexed by Google. Since it was not possible for crawling and indexing in-app content the actual apps and their internal app screen do not show up in Google index.Users can normally find apps only through app stores like Google Play or iTunes.
With Google starting to index both app landing pages and deep screen of the apps, Google app rankings can be categorized into two, App Packs and App Deep Links. App Packs are linked to app download pages and they are more like the app search results. Ranking in App Pack depends on app title, description and ratings.
Deep Links like in the web pages are links to specific deep screen in the particular app. These deeps links show either as standard deep link displays which are normally shown in blue and some results show up with more visual prominence like a colored button, specific app icons or as star ratings.Presently app indexing is supported by Google in Chrome apps.
Google search results have been missing a big part of data without apps showing in its index pages. With the these new developments Google will have an advantage over app stores since it is still the No.
1 search engine in the world and it can easily show and target potential customers that any app stores at the moment. Mobile search results could be the next big thing with potential competition flowing in as the world moves further towards mobile apps due to a huge increase in mobile users and its advantage of accessing Internet from anywhere with a proper network.
