1252564 - Investigate whether or not Google search supports app indexing in Firefox

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Michael Comella (:mcomella) [NI reported issues only: ex-Mozilla]]

As best as I understand it, the idea is that deep links into your apps can show up in Google search results (e.g. you search a restaurant and the search results have a link directly to the restaurant in yelp).

However, on the introduction page [1] for Android:

Technical requirements

Android

    Developed on apps with a minsdkVersion no higher than 17.
    Available for users signed into the Google app and for all users on Chrome.
---

Notably only says Chrome. Perhaps they do some user agent sniffing and don't serve this content to Firefox?

[1]: https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/introduction

Comment 1

[:Margaret Leibovic]

NI to Barbara to investigate.

Comment 2

[Barbara Bermes [:barbara] - NI please!]

Apparently not only available for Android, but also iOS 9, adding Karen.

carnold has approached us before regarding this: http://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-app-indexing, http://searchengineland.com/google-app-indexing-safari-233062

Because we are a browser showing Google search results, would we be the server or the client for this? 

If we are the client, I'm not sure if this would be very useful as I'm not sure what stuff we would deep link to in our app? We are not an app like Yelp or Facebook that provides content, we are the window to web content. Mike, by looking at code etc, how much effort would this be to implement?

If we are the server - which I don't think is the case here - by supporting this, we'd be telling users intentionally to leave the browser. I assume there is nothing we would have to do.

I'd ask "WHY (now)?"? Would this, at any point, be driving engagement? I need to be convinced.

Comment 3

[:Margaret Leibovic]

Redirecting to mcomella, since he raised this issue.

Comment 4

[Michael Comella (:mcomella) [NI reported issues only: ex-Mozilla]]

(In reply to Barbara Bermes [:barbara] from comment #2)
> Because we are a browser showing Google search results, would we be the
> server or the client for this? 

Potentially both! This bug is for "the server" – we show links to other apps – and bug 1252569 is for "the client" – we get opened via Google search results.

> If we are the server - which I don't think is the case here - by supporting
> this, we'd be telling users intentionally to leave the browser. I assume
> there is nothing we would have to do.

I believe we'd have to talk to Google about displaying these links for Google searches from Firefox but other than that I think it'd just work.

> If we are the client...

I'll continue the client conversation in bug 1252569.

> I'd ask "WHY (now)?"? Would this, at any point, be driving engagement? I
> need to be convinced.

As the server, we'd be better integrating with the platform and potentially making users more delighted in the Android experience. If Chrome has this feature and we don't, they might be encouraged to use Chrome instead if it's a feature they are passionate about (though I'm not convinced that that would be the case).

Comment 5

[Michael Comella (:mcomella) [NI reported issues only: ex-Mozilla]]

NI Barbara so she sees this.

Comment 6

[:Margaret Leibovic]

Clearing nom, this is a product issue that doesn't need to be discussed in triage.

Comment 7

[Barbara Bermes [:barbara] - NI please!]

We need to understand what it takes to act as a server in this play.

I can reach out to Christopher Arnold and see if he can connect us to Google to talk about the server part.

Comment 8

[BMO Automation]

We have completed our launch of our new Firefox on Android. The development of the new versions use GitHub for issue tracking. If the bug report still reproduces in a current version of [Firefox on Android nightly](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fenix) an issue can be reported at the [Fenix GitHub project](https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/). If you want to discuss your report please use [Mozilla's chat](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix#Connect_to_Matrix) server https://chat.mozilla.org and join the [#fenix](https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#fenix:mozilla.org) channel.