Why would deep links further change the mobile Internet?

Although there is more and more discussion about mobility, it is still very rudimentary compared to the desktop computers we know well. The competition for native apps and mobile Web pages is in the ascendant, according to the mobile application statistics platform Flurry recently released data showing that our average daily use of mobile devices is 2 hours and 42 minutes, of which 86% of the time is using the app. But it's not like many people claim that moving a Web page is going to die. Mobile Web pages are still a very important part of the process, as the former Mozilla CEO John Lilly said, mobility is still in the "pre-page ranking period (Pre-pagerank), and we still lack the right tools and methods to efficiently exploit information." "In fact, if we can keep track of people, links, and people browsing the web, then we can organize Web content more easily," he said.

But each mobile app is independent, and the link between the content and the service disappears. Application search is broken, app content is confined to each app, and to some extent, each app builds its own walls. Links and data cannot be exchanged between apps, and the user intent, advertising exposure, and other profit indicators that we monitor on our computer Web pages do not perform well on the mobile side.

A deep link is required. Deep links Allow app developers to link to specific pages in the application, for example, by linking directly to a hotel in a particular hotel reservation app, rather than the company's mobile Web page or app's homepage. This is a small change, but it has far-reaching implications.

Now, one of the reasons why app-Setup ads make money is that he's the best choice for developers to advertise today. If you can't link to specific items in your app, your ad needs to:

1. Guide people to install the app

2. Users use the app

Because the only way people see the products in the app is through the app.

But through the depth of the link, can directly from the ads to the product, mobile application developers can reproduce the experience of the web side, so that the mobile advertising experience to open up a new situation. This shift has attracted a lot of attention. Facebook, Google and Twitter have all announced measures to support deep links in varying degrees. Facebook also publishes the Open Cross-platform solution app links for deep links.

They are not alone. This area attracts a lot of entrepreneurs and VCs. Urx recently completed a 12 million dollar a round of financing and announced their unique advantages in achieving deep links. TapCommerce and ActionX, respectively, financed 12 million of dollars and 3 million of dollars, and also launched their own depth-linking approach. Mobile search engine Quixey support AppUrl. Deeplink developed their own deep link management system. Tapstream has also developed its own system, called a "deferred depth link" (Defferd deep links), which enables developers to link to applications that are not installed without the app being installed to quickly generate a landing page.

Why are there so many standards? Companies that focus on mobile advertising need deep links because it allows advertisers to get richer advertising opportunities, higher conversion rates, and easier ad tracking. Why not create your own standards without a unified standard?

Deep links are not new, but there is no common standard to follow. Google uses X-callback-url to open links to different Google Apps, and Apple tests the smart app banners to achieve deep links. But these are still in the early stages, and even Facebook's deep link standards are no more effective than off-the-shelf advertising tools.

So why do deep links come back to people's discussions? The reason is the popularity of mobile apps, the series of dilemmas faced by app developers and marketers, and the bottleneck of mobile advertising revenue.

The depth link shows the difference between the mobile internet and the traditional desktop Internet in the development process, which partly stems from the dominant position of mobile app in mobile internet. Cookies, originally an open specification of Web pages, have now been replaced by proprietary recognition methods for some popular apps or operating systems. Deep linking is a good practice and is now becoming a norm. Without the restriction of Web URL structure, mobile application developers must add deep links to achieve the basic function of the original web page implementation.

For the future, will the depth link completely subvert the app's URL structure or simply provide a short-term solution for mobile advertising and electric dealers? Even if the answer is that it's just a short-term solution, it can make a huge difference to the electric and mobile ads and help build a more diverse mobile advertising experience.

In the long term, deep links may be just a stepping stone to the popularity of card-like interfaces and service-depth integration (as if Google were integrating Uber into Google Maps). Card design may just be an example of what is now being designed, but they can have a profound impact on the structure of mobile Web pages and may lead to richer interfaces beyond the depth of links.

But for the foreseeable future, as long as the app is the mainstream of the mobile experience, we'll definitely hear more about deep links.