Is a Mobile Deep Linking Standard Necessary?
The idea of a āuniversal deep link standardā is bound to comes up in any conversation about deep linking and the future of app engagement. It permeates the as-yet-unanswered questions about how the various platforms link together, and how all platforms will āplay nicelyā together to deliver value for the app developers and marketers. And it was something that Vera Tzoneva asked a lot about in December at a Deep Linking conference in NYC.
The problem is that the various issues that many note as arguments in favor of a standard are not relevant. Itās one of the reasons why most of the startups in the space have shied way from trying to build a standard, and why the entities that have tried to push their own guidelines as standards have largely failed at doing so.
Will there ever be an accepted deep linking standard?
Nope. I donāt buy it. There are lots of reasons why, but letās start with the reality that a standard would require all of the large players to work together, most notably the OS makers. Itās not out of the realm of possibility that Google will be cooperative, as they will approach it as benevolent and good for all parties. Apple, on the other hand, is not known for cooperation or openness. They are a closed platform and a controlled environment.
And letās also not forget that though Android has been growing faster, iOS still owns the scale of developers. With so much money flowing through iOS apps, they have no real incentive to share a standard with Google and making it easier for Android developers to unlock some of that cash.
Donāt Googleās app indexing, Twitter Cards or Facebookās App Links qualify as standards?
No, they are actually more āguidelinesā than they are standards. Each of these guidelines allows an app to get traffic from a specificdistribution source. More specifically:
Google App Indexing/Deep Linking: Allows for deep linking just from Google search results on Android from a few Android devices (Nexus was first, and some more recent versions also support this). If youāve integrated Googleās app indexing and your links are tapped from anywhere else on an Android device besides Google (or anywhere on an iOS device), this integration will not effect the flow.
Twitter Cards: One of the widest deep linking use cases today, Twitter Cards allow developers to deep link from a tweet of their content right into a page inside the app. However, integrating Twitter Card tags doesnāt effect the UX from any other major platform, and it will not make all of your content links into deep links.
App Links: Facebookās open API for deep links is called App Links. Its functionality allows developers to drive app-to-app deep links by calling their API and essentially āaskingā if that web URL has a corresponding app link in the App Links database. These links donāt work anywhere else, and the solution offers no support for web-to-app deep links
Is there a massive need for a standard?
There would surely be benefit. An accepted standard would democratize the process of accepting deep links from all sources, and would certainly allow for a more seamless user experience across all environments. A standard wouldnāt require separate support for each individual traffic source to maximize end-user benefit.
But letās be realistic. Itās not likely to happen, and we should all accept that. But the smarter platforms (mainly the startups) are building their businesses to leverage all of the guidelines. Specifically, weāve designed Deeplink to check the web markup and if the page hosts their app link in some way (Twitter Cards, App Links, Google), we will handle that and launch the app (if installed).
Hint: Test this by taking any Etsy URL and adding ādeeplink.me/ā to the front! Etsy is not a client, but weāll find the app URI in their App Link implementation and deep link the user from any starting point). Example: Ā deeplink.me/etsy.com/listing/221773496/cobweb-felted-scarf-wool-scarf-winter
There are a few app developers that host all of the guidelines above in their web markup, and if you view their source code, itās appears clunky and long, and the same data is repeated over and over again. But at the end of the day, if a site hosts their app URIs anywhere in their web source code, then we have all we need to launch the app from any starting point!
These guidelines all help developers structure the data in such a way that itās readable for a specific traffic source, but since each only works with itās own platform, they are definitively not standards.
Is an accepted standard a necessity for the deep linking ecosystem to take flight?
A standard is not a necessity for deep linking to take off and become commonplace and easy to leverage in many different ways. Though a standard would certainly make linking to content easier, our platform exists (and others do too) to help make app content accessible from organic and paid sources.
Looking past the idea of a standard, whatās more important is that apps publish their app links somewhere, so the content can be accessed more readily and easily (though some smart startups have even figured out a way around thatā¦. Ā ahem).