CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidandroid-app-indexing
AlexVPerl
AlexVPerl

Reputation: 7996

Android Google App Indexing: What To Index?

I have implemented Google app indexing according to the official guide: https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/android/app

I dont have corresponding web content, just associated to a custom landing page.

I am a bit confused by what exactly gets indexed within my app:

  1. Does the activity content itself get indexed or only the string value that is set in the description?

    Thing object = new Thing.Builder() .setName(mTitle) .setDescription(mDescription) .setUrl(Uri.parse(mUrl)) .build();

  2. If displaying dynamic content within the app, does it get indexed / crawled automatically or do I need to concatenate it all into a string and set as description as above?

  3. What activities' content will be crawled?

  4. Is deep linking a requirement for activity content to be indexed / crawled? I only created a deep link to the main/home activity but want as much as possible of the app to be crawled.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 713

Answers (1)

Stan Ct
Stan Ct

Reputation: 366

Currently, Google App Indexing requires that you indeed have a correspondent website to your app. However, it was announced that Google is starting to index app-only content and you can submit your interest in having your app-only content indexed by submitting this form - https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/app-only

Note that the submission of the form does not automatically makes Google index your app-only content.

Now, answering to your questions:

1- The title and the description are used for indexing and specially to allow auto-sugestions if you are using the App Indexing API, which I would recommend. But you can also index what type of activity/content it is, through the activity type. For instance if you have static content, the activity type would be TYPE_VIEW, if it was video content the activity type would be TYPE_WATCH. Here you have more information regarding the existent activity types - https://developers.google.com/android/reference/com/google/android/gms/appindexing/Action#constant-summary

2- You just need to provide the unique deep-link, the title and the description for the content. In case it's time limited content, for example a news item, an auction or sale, you can use the [noindex.xml] to later remove the indexing from that content. More information in using the [noindex.xml] in here - https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/android/app#create-the-noindexxml-file

3- Only the title and description will be crawled.

4- To index content, you must provide an unique deep-link that will allow an user to execute it and automatically see the content in your app. So it is required that you have a deep-link for every content you wish to index.

In your case, in which you don't have an associated website with content, I would recommend you to use the App Indexing API. It is very ease to implement and allows you to publish your deep-links directly in your app. It also brings some advantages like enabling autocompletions for your app users, richer Search results, improved Search quality and enhanced ranking signal. You can see more about it in here - https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/android/publish

Upvotes: 2

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