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[Continued from https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/wZEY_QZicxg;context-place=forum/webmasters]

Google Search Console Message:

This week we received a GSC Message stating that the deep links are not correctly configured.

IMG1 GSC Message

IMG2 Crawl Errors

This is the first message of its kind since December 2014 when we implemented the App Index mechanism.

Our setup of the App Index has not changed since then (except that we added a few pages, we are now at 20 pages - it grows by design with 3 pages / year).

Environment:

The ecosystem is configured for App Indexing combined with the Mobile SEO pattern "Separate URL's" since December 2014 and it worked great until now. The initial setup was reviewed with the help of @JohnMu , see https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/webmasters/mobile/VckmhD1tRgc The details about the setup are also documented in this article http://rolf.huijbrechts.be/portfolio/mfdb-app-deep-linking/

The Mobile SEO pattern "Separate URL's" is configured for 20 pages, the other desktop pages do not have a custom mobile equivalent (meaning that the responsive desktop website page will be displayed for those which is what we want).

The App Indexing mechanism uses a custom URI Scheme, e.g. -d "fdbappindex://verlengde-weekends-2018-belgie"

Details:

It is strange that it reports 443 Pages with error "Intent URI not supported" although only 20 pages are configured (tagged) for the App Index. Secondly, the total number of pages in the Google Index for the desktop website is 4701. I double-checked the tagging of the desktop website and the mobile website, and the code in the Android App, and they are still valid.

Our test scripts for ADB also works fine, e.g. "adb shell am start -W -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d "fdbappindex://verlengde-weekends-2018-belgie" com.macjeryseydesign.android.mfdbapp" does open that specific Android screen.

The GSC Error Details for each page contains in section "3 Test The App" an ADB command that you can use to verify if it working correctly. That command gives is "adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d http://www.feestdagen-belgie.be/verlengde-weekends-2018-belgie com.macjeryseydesign.android.mfdbapp". It is a surpriuse that it uses the HTTP URI Scheme (http://), although I'm using a custom URI scheme (fdbappindex://) for the App Index.

Questions

Can someone please help me to identify what is happening because I cannot find the reason for receiving that GSC Message. The tests for the App Index pass for 100%.

And we definitely want to keep the App Index alive for that website/webap/app. It is such a great feature for our users that have the App installed.

Thanks for your time, Rolf.

Rolf
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  • Responding to the answer of Ken @ the GWT Forum. 1) Thanks for the info on the App URI counting method. 2) You say that App Indexing has already deprecated Custom URI schemes, but according to https://firebase.google.com/docs/app-indexing/android/app they continue to be supported. – Rolf Feb 17 '17 at 10:23
  • Responding to the answer of Ken @ the GWT Forum. 3) I still cannot explain why the GWT Message reports the error for a total of 443 pages although only 20 pages are tagged to be in de App Index, and although the website has a total page count of +-4700. 4) The reason I'm using a Custom URI Scheme is that various standards exist for App Indexes and App Links (think Facebook) and I wanted to separate these two explicitly in the way the desktop website & Android App handle those by using Custom URI Schem e (opposed to HTTP Scheme). – Rolf Feb 17 '17 at 10:24
  • Hi, we have a similar problem and are trying to determine the cause. It may be related to a VIEW-Intent which has no URL set. – Benjamin Mesing Mar 03 '17 at 10:23

0 Answers0