“Index your apps in search engines” announced by Google

In an interesting move, Google has announced that it plans to start deep-indexing Android applications

and will show the relevant results in its mobile searches.

“We’re happy to announce a new capability of Google Search, called app indexing, that uses the

expertise of webmasters to help create a seamless user experience across websites and mobile apps,”

Google noted in a blog post.

Just like it crawls and indexes websites, Googlebot can now index content in your Android app.

Webmasters will be able to indicate which app content you'd like Google to index in the same way you

do for webpages today — through your existing Sitemap file and through Webmaster Tools. If both the

webpage and the app contents are successfully indexed, Google will then try to show deep links to your

app straight in our search results when we think they’re relevant for the user’s query and if the user has

the app installed. When users tap on these deep links, your app will launch and take them directly to the

content they need. Here’s an example of a search for home listings in Mountain View:

Google is presently testing app indexing and deep links for applications will start appearing in the Google search results only for the signed-in users on Android in US in the coming few weeks.

Google has also shared getting started instructions with those who are interested in enabling indexing on Android app. Click here