API Docs for URX's Deeplink Search Engine | Hacker News Reader

API Docs for URX's Deeplink Search Engine

developers.urx.com

30 pointsjmilinovich4 comments

A while ago, I made a search app using Google Custom Search: https://itunes.apple.com/app/in-app-search/id908073064

The URX App Search API certainly looks a lot more promising than Google for this purpose. It's good to see the documentation is public now and I'm sure it won't be long before a large number of apps are using this API.

One question about the app index: It doesn't specify the availability of apps in different operating systems. I have come across a number of apps whose sites have deep link information only for Android or iOS.

Also, it's interesting that IMDb isn't in the list, considering it is one of the most widely cited examples of app deep linking and its complete site index is easily downloaded and you can follow the links to it via /robots.txt.

CEO of URX here- thanks for your excitement Steve! We're definitely big fans of the app you built!

Currently we list out the availability of apps in our index by company and not by operating system; we’ll look into providing more detailed information.

Regarding IMDb: while the site index may be accessible and their app does have deep links, IMDb has not publicly exposed their deep link structure via meta tags. Currently, we're only indexing sites with these tags, but that will change shortly.

Is there an ELI5 explanation of what are Deep links? And in the context of an app, what does a "link" to a place in an app means?

"We’re indexing the top apps with deep link tags and building a knowledge graph that organizes apps by their content and by the actions they allow users to take." - whats the advantage for a developer to allow their app to be indexed?

I am super intrigued by the tech. But just want to understand by what it can do for an app.

CTO of URX here - thanks for the feedback!

ELI5 "what is a deep link?": mobile deep links mean registering custom URI schemes for your app, and registering a URL dispatcher within your app. The end result is that users can be sent directly to a specific page of content within your app. For example,

  spotify:artist:0X2BH1fck6amBIoJhDVmmJ

...will take you to the in-app version of this experience:

  https://open.spotify.com/artist/0X2BH1fck6amBIoJhDVmmJ

The intuition is that sending users to in-app content is preferable to web content; IMHO, this is especially important for apps that have rich content or have logged-in functionality.

Example of a bad experience for apps that don't use deeplinks: have you ever clicked on a LinkedIn email on your mobile device and landed on a sign-in page in your mobile browser? If they used deeplinks, you're probably already signed into your LinkedIn app and wouldn't need to go digging for your password. This has been a common pain point in people we've talked to.

As a developer, allowing your app to be indexed will make it easier for other developers to send you traffic. Currently, we believe that the limiting factor preventing a "link graph" from existing across apps, is the challenge developers face in discovering how to find (a) which pieces of content are relevant to a page within your app, and (b) how to contruct a deep link URL to send users to those pieces of content.

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