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Is it possible to set up iOS universal links without having a separate website?

For example, if you want a universal link that 1) opens your iOS app if the user has it installed on their device and 2) opens up the App store listing on any device without the app installed.

It seems that having a separate domain you control is the standard way to do it. The Apple documentation (here), and other guides like here and here, seem to make it pretty clear that you need to add the JSON code in the Apple App Site Association file to a separate website that you control.

But is it possible to set up universal links without that website?

Detail:

For an iOS mobile app developer, setting up a separate website, dealing with website hosting, etc. is distinct from building an iOS app, and an involved additional task to go through just for universal links. Many developers might have a site already or have experience building websites in addition to mobile apps, but it's still a different thing than building mobile apps.

So I'm surprised if Apple assumes app developers have a website ready to go for the purpose. I note there are non-Apple alternatives that do similar things that clearly don't require a website.

Edit: I am familiar with alternative linking systems, such as Firebase and Branch. I want to see how you can do it with Apple Universal Links.

So let's say you want to stick with Apple universal links. Is there a way to do it without setting up a website, dealing with hosts (and potential costs for that), etc?

If it is necessary, what would be the cheapest and easiest way to set up the bare minimum site for a mobile developer that would work for universal links?

SeanRtS
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  • You need to host the Apple site association file at the root of or in the .well-known directory at the root of a server somewhere and there must be no re-directs. This is for security. The minimum would be a single SSL enabled web site and a single domain name. You don't need to host any other content in the site. Traffic volumes would also be fairly low. – Paulw11 Sep 07 '19 at 20:15
  • Thanks. When you say traffic would be low, is that because it is only pinged when someone clicks on a link? (in which case traffic would correspond to the amount of links clicked) – SeanRtS Sep 08 '19 at 00:47
  • Yes, Safari will only pull your app association file when someone access a page containing the universal link. A few hundred bytes probably. You can use a free CloudFlare account to cache and distribute that load further. – Paulw11 Sep 08 '19 at 00:50
  • Helpful to hear. Caching and distributing the load sound like reasonably sophisticated web-based skills, no? And it would seem important to do that, because seems like I need to scale the website as the app (and therefore the universal link) scales. So it sounds like to do universal links I need to be relatively advanced in web-based technology. – SeanRtS Sep 08 '19 at 11:54
  • Coming across the same issue here. Dont suppose you have found a solution? – Jaden May 05 '21 at 02:28
  • It's been a few years, but I think that in the end I did indeed have to set up a separate site. I believe I got it to work with a wordpress site, following instructions here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56728175/wordpress-how-does-one-make-a-url-return-dynamic-json-with-custom-content-type and also using some info here: https://www.trapezemobile.com/2018/12/28/setting-up-an-association-file-for-ios-universal-links-in-wordpress/. To add relevant json code to wordpress I believe I had to use something like the code snippets plugin or child theme plugin. Depends on the wordpress setup. – SeanRtS May 15 '21 at 16:19

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