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i am in the process of making my app with firebase i am pretty much done with that except Firebase App Indexing. I am very exited with this feature because it could help me to increase my app get more traffic from the web but the problem is i really can't able to see how to implement this. According to Firebase Docs i just need to register my app with this pice of code

[[FIRAppIndexing sharedInstance] registerApp:your Apple ID from iTunes Connect];

I have done that but what should i do after that?

1.My app is firebase app that means i don't have any website to host my content except firebase realtime database. Does my content is available for crawlers? if not how can i make available to them?

2.If i can able to show my content in the google search results i don't wanna show all the content and i wanna show just some of my content for example i have a social app for sharing General Knowledge questions, i wanna show just the question like "What is the highest mountain" in the search results and if the user want to see the answer it should take them to my app how can i do that?

3.As per docs i came to know that i need to create univiersal links for my app content to direct users from google search but how shold i do that ? Lets say should i crate universal links when the user create question?? if so how can i do that ??

Thank you very much for the help.

ilvcs
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1 Answers1

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This is not currently possible on iOS using Firebase App Indexing. The situation is slightly different on Android, but that is not applicable to your question.

On iOS, Firebase App Indexing is simply highlighting pages on your website in Google search results that have corresponding content inside your app. This is achieved by piggybacking on Apple's Universal Links standard, and there is no proactive 'crawling' going on inside your app. This means unless you have a corresponding web page for your app with 1:1 content parity, you can't really benefit from Firebase App Indexing on iOS as it comes out-of-the-box.

The best workaround is to generate little 'placeholder pages' for every piece of content in your app, which the sole purpose of opening your app (if it is installed) or redirecting to the App Store (if it is not installed). Ideally you'll need some sort of deferred deep linking system so that users still see the correct content after downloading. Fun fact: this is essentially how HotelTonight operates their entire business model. Unfortunately Firebase's implementation is not mature enough to support this full flow, and Google hasn't quite figured out how to rank app-only content properly yet in search results so you will probably need to pro-actively submit your placeholder pages to them.

Shameless plug: at Branch, we provide all of the above as a free service. You can read more about it here and take a look at the set up docs here.

Alex Bauer
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  • Can i use Branch along with firebase?? because i have almost finished my app with firebase google signin and realtime database but now i am also very interested with Branch Universal links, App Indexing and other stuff. Thanks. – ilvcs Aug 12 '16 at 05:34
  • Absolutely you can! Firebase is very modular, so you can just think of Branch as a plug-and-play upgrade for the App Indexing and Dynamic Links modules from Firebase. – Alex Bauer Aug 12 '16 at 12:34