Linking your app to search results

You can link your app to Bing search results to boost your app's discoverability and engagement. When you do so, customers using Windows 8.1 Smart Search can go right to relevant content within your app.

For example, if you have a travel app, a customer who has your app installed and searches for a specific destination will have the option to go directly to the your app's content about that location. Or with a shopping app, a search for an item that you sell can allow a customer to bring up your app's info about that item, right within the app itself.

Note  Your app needs to be published and available in the Store in order to use the feature as described here.

Here's an overview of how to get your app to show up in search results.

  1. In the Bing webmaster portal, select Connected Pages and add the URL for your app's listing in the Windows Store. This links your app to website-level search results. Note  If you just want to link the home screen of your app to website-level search results, this is all you need to do. To link specific app content to webpage-level results, continue with the following steps.
  2. Add markup to the web pages for which you want app links to come up in search results. You'll need to specify your app ID, package family name, and launch arguments.
  3. Implement deep-linking support in your app so that Bing can launch your app to content matching the search result.
  4. Run the verification tool, and then return to the Bing webmaster portal to turn on app deep-linking.

Learn more on the app linking product page or in this MSDN article. These links also have info on how to use this feature with your Windows Phone Store apps.