Google Adds Additional Ranking Boost For Using App Indexing API
At this year’s SMX East event, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Mariya Moeva announced that Google would be giving an additional ranking boost to apps using their App Indexing API.
The new API lets developers define app activities that support deep linking, so that when Google indexes app content and URLs referenced in a website or sitemap, they can provide users with a more meaningful experience. Mariya also mentioned that the App Indexing API allows Google to track engagement metrics to help determine how useful the app is to users.
In October 2013, Google announced that they would start indexing apps the same way that they index websites. This meant that if Android users were logged in, they would see deep links to app features integrated into search results. Then in February, Google announced that indexed app content would start appearing more prominently in search results. Unfortunately, Google hasn’t made any official announcements about the new rankings boost on their blog, since everything is evolving so rapidly. Hopefully we’ll learn more soon.
In addition to the ranking boost announcement, Google also released some new documentation for app indexing that is supported by the new iOS9 operating system, and introduced some new Search Console features specifically for app developers (listed below):
- Users can now filter Search Analytics data based on search result clicks versus app install clicks.
- Users can fetch as Google by submitting an unpublished APK version directly through the fetch as Google feature.
- Fetch as Google results will now also show the complete API response including title, description, API URL and more.
If you’re interested, you can sign up to become a beta tester here.