Google Search Now Discovers Content Within Android Apps

Google announced you can now search content within Android apps through their new App Indexing protocol they launched at the end of October. Currently available on Android smartphones, when you search Google and there is an app that has content related to your Google search, you will see search results that open the app, directly […]

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google-apps-featuredGoogle announced you can now search content within Android apps through their new App Indexing protocol they launched at the end of October.

Currently available on Android smartphones, when you search Google and there is an app that has content related to your Google search, you will see search results that open the app, directly to the piece of content in that app, that matches your query.

Google said, “Google can save you the digging for information in the dozens of apps you use every day, and get you right where you need to go in those apps with a single search.”

Here is an example of searching for a movie and Google returning content within the IMDB app. When you click open, it takes you directly to the movie details within the app:

App Indexing

Webmasters can learn more about how to get their app content to show up in these results by looking at our post named Google App Indexing: Google Can Index & Link To Content In Your Android App.

This currently works only with Apps in the Google Play Store and searches done on Android devices within the Google Search app or directly in Chrome and Android browsers.

Of course, this also works with showing you apps you can download to get the content. It will only open directly to the content within the app when you already have downloaded the app and if the app is participating in the App Indexing protocol.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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