LAURENCE MORONEY (VOICEOVER): Welcome to the Googleplex.
This is an incredible place with lots of great stuff being
worked on every single day.
Before I worked here, I always wondered
what it would be like to come to the Googleplex,
meet up with a Googler, and have coffee with them.
And just chat about what they do, how they do it,
and why they do it.
And today we're going to do exactly that.
Welcome to "Coffee with a Googler."
I'm Laurence Moroney and today I'm here with Jennifer Lin.
And Jennifer's from our App Indexing team,
and she's going to tell us all about it.
So, Jennifer, welcome.
JENNIFER LIN: Thanks for having me here.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Thanks for being here.
So, App Indexing, what is it?
What do you do with it?
JENNIFER LIN: So App Indexing is where we get Android and iOS
apps into the Google index.
LAURENCE MORONEY: OK.
JENNIFER LIN: So we can crawl, index, and surf content
for Maps, much like what we've done with websites.
LAURENCE MORONEY: OK.
JENNIFER LIN: Developers are gonna
love App Indexing, because it gets them
organic installs and traffic to their app
from Google search results, search auto-completions,
and now on Tap.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Right.
So if I understand this right, it's like now,
if I open my phone, instead of me searching on the web
and finding a website and viewing
that website in the browser, I can actually search.
And if that content is within an app that I have,
then I can go straight into the app
and get maybe a richer experience than I
would in a mobile browser.
Is that what it's all about?
JENNIFER LIN: Yeah, that's right.
So with App Indexing, Google search
can help users find information from apps that they've already
installed-- apps that they may not have known have answers
that they're looking for.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Cool.
JENNIFER LIN: I've got some exciting stats
that I want to share with you.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Tell me.
JENNIFER LIN: We've indexed 50 billion deep links
from thousands of apps, and 25% of our Google searches
return deep link results to signed in Android users.
LAURENCE MORONEY: OK.
JENNIFER LIN: We also have several success stories
from apps published on our developer site.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Right.
JENNIFER LIN: For example, "Daily Mail", a newspaper app--
LAURENCE MORONEY: The British newspaper, yeah.
JENNIFER LIN: Yup.
They have seen 22% boost in search impressions
for their app users.
And those app users spent 20% more time per visit
in the app, reading and sharing articles.
So that's great!
So I want to show you an example.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Yeah.
Yeah, cool.
JENNIFER LIN: So let's say I am checking out the Grand Hyatt
Hotel in San Francisco.
LAURENCE MORONEY: OK.
JENNIFER LIN: And so I search for it,
and I get a bunch of results from apps
that I have installed, like TripAdvisor--
LAURENCE MORONEY: OK.
JENNIFER LIN: --Yelp, booking.com, Expedia.
LAURENCE MORONEY: OK.
JENNIFER LIN: If I click on any of these titles,
it'll take me directly to the Grand Hyatt San Francisco
page in the app.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So it's really nice
that I can find this content by searching,
but what if I don't have the app?
JENNIFER LIN: So if you don't have the app installed,
then Google search will also help
users discover your apps once you
integrate with App Indexing.
So another example is let's say I search for patio umbrellas.
I see results from wayfair.com; I also
get results from overstock.com.
Now I'll also see an option to install
the Wayfair app or the Overstock app
to go and view their information on patio umbrellas.
And when I install, I'm taken to the Play Store page.
And I accept the app permissions,
and the install happens.
And I can hit the Continue button to go directly
to the patio umbrellas page in the Overstock app
without having to go back to the home screen.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Got it.
So it's not like breaking the workflow.
I'm able to install and then go straight to that content
right away.
JENNIFER LIN: Right.
LAURENCE MORONEY: That's pretty neat.
So, I can see where this now makes it very interesting
for you to market your app.
That the apps with the best content
are the ones that people are going to see, right?
JENNIFER LIN: Mm hmm.
LAURENCE MORONEY: And so if I can build an app
with great content, then people will
be able to find my app as well as my content.
JENNIFER LIN: That's right.
LAURENCE MORONEY: And that's what
you were talking about earlier as potentially a new marketing
channel.
JENNIFER LIN: Yes.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So, I think developers are gonna love this,
you're right.
But how do they get started?
JENNIFER LIN: So there are two steps
to get started with App Indexing.
The first step is they have to add
HTTP deep links to their app.
And then the second step is they just
publish those HTTP deep links, so Google can discover them
and we can start crawling their deep links.
LAURENCE MORONEY: I see.
JENNIFER LIN: And so the simplest way
to publish their HTTP deep links is to associate their app
and their website.
And all they have to do is just go to the Google Play Developer
Console, log in, type in their website address.
And then they can log into the Google search console
and accept that website verification request.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Wow.
JENNIFER LIN: And that's it.
Just make sure you test that your deep links are working,
they open correctly.
And then you get to measure the performance of your deep links
on Google search with our Google Search Console.
LAURENCE MORONEY: It's as simple as that.
JENNIFER LIN: Yup.
That's it.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Cool.
JENNIFER LIN: And you can go to our website,
which is g.co/appindexing, to find all this information.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So g.co/appindexing.
JENNIFER LIN: Yup.
LAURENCE MORONEY: That's a pretty easy one to remember.
Is there an app for that that's app indexed?
JENNIFER LIN: No.
[LAUGHTER]
LAURENCE MORONEY: So thanks, Jennifer.
That was really awesome.
And thanks everybody, and hope you enjoyed this episode
of "Coffee with a Googler."
We've got lots more great information on App Indexing.
There's a great dev byte that you can watch here.
And we've linked other stuff into the description
of this video.
If you have any questions for me or any questions for Jennifer,
please leave them in the comments below.
And subscribe to the Google Developers
channel for more great content.
Thank you.
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