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I would love to enable Google App Indexing in my iOS app; I followed Google's tutorial, but it only says

Add a com.apple.developer.associated-domains entitlement in XCode that lists each domain associated with your app.

Do I have to prefix my domain, e.g. 

applinks:mydomain.com

?

swalkner
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1 Answers1

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As far as currently documented supporting app indexing under iOS requires 2 steps:

Support HTTP deep links in your mobile app as per Apple's documentation

This involves creating the apple-app-site-association file that contains JSON data about the URLs that your app can handle, uploading the apple-app-site-association file to your HTTPS web server (to create a trust relationship between your site and the app) and adopting the UIApplicationDelegate methods.

Integrate the App Indexing SDK as per Google's documenation

Install the GoogleAppIndexing pod and register your app in your application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: as follows

[[GSDAppIndexing sharedInstance] registerApp:*your iTunes ID*];

Additional notes

It's important to remark that there must be a certain degree of coherence between the web and app content as stated in the Android documentation

You can enable Google to crawl through your app content and present your Android app as a destination to users through Google Search results, when that content corresponds to a web page that you own.

If the crawler determines there's a significant difference between the 2 it might complain and give you a Content mismatch error in the search console. See the crawl error FAQ.

Keep in mind that the app indexing seems to be still in a preliminary phase under iOS given that some information are available only for the Android platform, so ymmv.

Further reference

Check the WWDC video Seamless Linking to Your App for a full implementation example. They talk about entitlements @ 23:20.

Tomas Camin
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  • but what about the associated domain-stuff Google mentions in its tutorial? "Add a com.apple.developer.associated-domains entitlement in XCode that lists each domain associated with your app." – swalkner Nov 10 '15 at 11:54
  • Google is just repeating what's in Apple's documentation (*If you’ve already followed the instructions to support universal links in your app, you can skip this section.*). Apple documentation is more exhaustive, follow that one. – Tomas Camin Nov 10 '15 at 11:58
  • I did, but even there nothing is mentioned regarding some prefix, but when adding an entry in the entitlements section, a default prefix (webcredentials) is provided. At another point I read something about applinks: – swalkner Nov 10 '15 at 12:43
  • WWDC video shows a complete example, worth watching. – Tomas Camin Nov 10 '15 at 12:50
  • which one? 509 from 2015? – swalkner Nov 10 '15 at 14:25
  • Yes. Check the **Further reference** paragraph in my updated answer. – Tomas Camin Nov 10 '15 at 14:26
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/94788/discussion-between-tomas-camin-and-swalkner). – Tomas Camin Nov 11 '15 at 08:50
  • Looks like `GoogleAppIndexing` library is not needed any more. – Timur Bernikovich Dec 26 '16 at 10:12