Google Search Adds Support For App Indexing In Safari On iOS 9

By the end of October, searching on Google in Safari on iOS 9 will provide deep links into apps, when appropriate and where publishers have taken action.

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Google App Indexing has allowed publishers to serve up links within Google’s search results on iOS that lead directly into their apps, but only for Chrome. Now, Google has announced similar support is coming to Safari, for those on iOS 9.

Spotted via VentureBeat, Google shared on its Google Developers Google+ page that iOS apps can now have deep links to their content appear when people do a Google search in Safari, with the right setup:

App Indexing is now compatible with HTTP deep link standards for iOS 9, as it has been on Android from the beginning. That means that you can start getting your app content into the Search results page on Safari in iOS, simply by adding Universal Links to your iOS app, then integrating with our SDK.

With this improvement, we will no longer support new integrations on iOS 7 and iOS 8. Users will start seeing your app content in Safari on iOS at the end of October.

The post also went on to say that support for deep linking within Android, of course, continues:

And, of course, on Android, you can still get your content into the Search results page, autocompletions, and Now on Tap by adding HTTP deep links and integrating with the App Indexing API.

For more background, see our page on Google App Indexing and Google’s own guide to app indexing.


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About the author

Danny Sullivan
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Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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