Google enables app indexing with deep linking for Safari in iOS 9

Developers will soon be able to use Google's app indexing feature to surface app content in searches conducted in Safari for iOS 9, as well as Google's native iOS apps, as the company on Friday announced compatibility with Apple's HTTP deep linking standards.

With iOS 9 compatibility, app indexing surfaces mobile app content in Google Search results in Safari, a feature previously limited to Google Chrome and Google's flagship iOS app. Safari search results and deep links should start showing up for iOS 9 users by the end of October.

In order to take advantage of Google's app indexing feature, developers need to add Universal Links to their app and integrate with Google's SDK. Once an app integrates indexed links, its content becomes searchable by users conducting Google queries. In Google's example, a search for "Cascal" returns content from within Yelp and including a deep link to open that app.

Google introduced its app indexing program to iOS in May, but only a select group of developers were allowed access to the feature, with compatibility limited to Chrome and the Google app.

With the new capability, the company said it will no longer support new integrations of app indexing on iOS 7 and iOS 8.