Google App Ranking
As we learned in class, the PageRank and hubs-and-authorities algorithms are viable methods for ranking websites among search results. However, they are dependent on the presence of in-links and out-links as indicators of authority. We might also want to be able to rank things that are not so directly linked, but for which a ranking still makes sense.
One example of this is ranking mobile applications. Namely, Google’s search engine actually provides a list of such “apps” when a user searches a relevant keyword on a mobile device. The Google search “weather,” for example, has its own “apps” tab that lists numerous weather apps.
A more interesting aspect of Google’s search engine on mobile devices is that search results can actually take users directly into sections of an app that they have installed, or otherwise provide installation recommendations based on their search queries. This “deep linking” is interesting, because incorporating deep links in search results is in theory a lot harder than providing a list of relevant apps based on a keyword search, for example. Google needs to be able to rank the authority of apps and “pages” of apps that it provides deep links for, just as it ranks the authority of web pages.
While Google’s PageRank algorithm is not so simple as to only take page authority (as determined by links) into account, page authority does play a significant role in Google’s webpage ranking algorithm. Similarly, app authority plays a role in Google’s app-ranking algorithm, although the specifics are different since Google can no longer rely in inbound and outbound links.
Because deep links take users to a specific section of a mobile application, Google actually has a method for ranking parts of apps, part of which it provides through its App Indexing API. The API measures aspects of how a user interacts with an app, for example the length of time a user spends on a part of an app and specific actions if the user is interacting with the app in a way other than simply viewing it. While Google does not specifically state that it uses this information to rank app content when providing deep links, it is highly probable that such information is in fact taken into account.
Google also uses what it calls “Googlebot,” which is Google’s web crawler, to discover app content. In addition to discovering content, it is suggested that the crawler will be able to detect in-app spam and “cloaking cases,” which refers to “cloaking” titles of app content to reflect information different than what is presented in the app. The crawler assists in providing deep links to apps, based both on relevant content and on penalizing spam and poorly-represented app content.
http://searchengineland.com/how-google-may-rank-apps-app-only-content-236469
https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/android/publish