1

I am trying to set-up universal links for an iOS app.

The Apple search validator keeps failing when I try to validate the file apple-app-site-association with error message:

Unable to parse that webpage URL. Try a different URL.

The file content is correct, I tried with already validated files from other websites but it seems the crawler fails to access the website generally.

The domain and website are hosted on a shared server at 1and1.com without SSL. The file is not signed.

Any idea why that is?

Manuel
  • 14,274
  • 6
  • 57
  • 130

2 Answers2

1

This is the "App Search API Validation Tool", not the "Universal Links Validation Tool" (which doesn't exist from Apple). The results from this tool have no connection to whether Universal Links work or not.

That said, you must have SSL in order for Universal Links to work. That is the number one requirement. If you can't/don't want to set this up, look at an external link hosting service like Firebase Dynamic Links or Branch.io (full disclosure: I'm on the Branch team)

Alex Bauer
  • 13,147
  • 1
  • 27
  • 44
  • Thanks, it was the missing SSL certificate. After installing it, it worked fine. The Universal Link Validator I meant was: https://limitless-sierra-4673.herokuapp.com – Manuel Dec 21 '16 at 21:43
  • Yes, that is a much more accurate validator for Universal Links. Here is an even more up-to-date version of it: http://branch.io/resources/aasa-validator/ – Alex Bauer Dec 21 '16 at 21:46
0

In reference to "you must have SSL in order for Universal Links to work. That is the number one requirement." This is no longer a requirement.

If your app runs in iOS 9 or later and you use HTTPS to serve the apple-app-site-association file, you can create a plain text file that uses the application/json MIME type and you don’t need to sign it.

John Jason
  • 11
  • 2
  • Could you add this as a comment to the existing answer? It seems more of a comment to the existing answer than an answer to the original question. – Manuel Jun 03 '21 at 23:36