androidandroid-permissionsdeep-linkingapplinksandroid-app-indexing

Android Deep Links and App Links Confused


Can anyone explain in real life example what is the difference between

App Links - https://developer.android.com/training/app-links/deep-linking.html

Deep links - https://developer.android.com/training/app-links/index.html

App Indexing - https://developer.android.com/studio/write/app-link-indexing.html

in Android?

Have read too many posts and documentations, but still cannot get the exact gist.

I understand that App links works with Android 6.0 and Deep Links with 4.2. but in performance, they are doing the similar task.


Solution

  • If you have an app or are developing an app, app indexation and deep linking are things you definitely need to be paying attention to. Basically, Google wants to treat your app like a website. It wants to crawl it and index it so that search results can return specific pages from an app in mobile searches. That ability to return specific pages within an app? That’s deep linking.

    What is Deep Linking?

    Deep linking, in a general sense, involves linking to specific content within a website or app, rather than to the homepage. Here we’re talking in particular about getting specific elements of an app to show up in search results on a mobile device, allowing users to open an app directly from a search results page. Note: Users will only see this prompt if they have the particular app installed.

    Photo: Example

    What Is App Indexing?

    App indexing is the result of getting your app in Google’s index to enable deep linking. By allowing Google to index pages within your app, features (or promotions) within the app can begin showing up in users’ mobile searches, driving visits (and hopefully conversions) to the app.

    What is an App Linking with the example of Facebook

    When someone shares content from within an app that has Facebook App Links applied, anyone clicking on that link will be able to access that content through the app. This can be done using an app alternative to existing web content, or app-only content, and works either from ‘web to app’ or ‘app to app’. The feature works with Android, iOS and Windows phones

    Photo: Example