How to use the Deep link validator

Using deep links helps provide you and your users a better user experience, higher retention, and new opportunities to engage your users and increase traffic to your app. This article explains the benefits of using the deep link validator and how to use it. Learn about the Deep link validator and how to access it.

On this page

• Prepare for success
• How to validate an app or specific link
• How to understand the detailed app verification table
• How to download or send the full report

Prepare for success

If you're unfamiliar with deep links, learn more About deep links and how toSet up deep linking.

How to validate an app or a specific link

The deep link validator tool allows you to validate your entire app or a specific link to make sure it’s usable and working as intended.

App validation for Android

To validate all the deep links in your app:

1. In the “Deeplink validator” page, select "Android" in the “Select platform” drop-down.
2. Enter or search for your app from the app picker.
3. Choose Validate all deeplinks in the “Select report type” drop-down.
4. Select Validate.

After you select “Validate”, the scan pulls all the deep links found in your app, and performs the relevant checks on each link.

App validation for iOS

Follow these steps to validate all the deep links in your app:

1. In the “Deeplink validator” page, select “iOS” in the “Select platform” drop-down.
2. Enter or search for your app from the app picker.
3. Choose Validate all deeplinks in the “Select report type” drop-down.
4. Click Add app domains.

After you have validated all the deep links in your app, a slidelog opens. In the slidelog, select the following:

1. Matching Android app: Select the corresponding Android app to the iOS app.
2. Add your own domains: Select the domains that you want to validate.
3. Click Apply to validate.

The validator pulls all the domains found in the Android app along with the domains that you entered and then performs the relevant checks.

Specific link validation

To validate a specific link:

1. In the “Deeplink validator” page, select "Android" or "iOS" in the “Select platform” drop-down.
2. Enter or search for your app from the app picker.
3. Choose Validate a deeplink in the “Select report type” drop-down.
4. Enter the link you want to validate.
5. Select Validate.

After you select "Validate", the relevant checks on your link are performed.

The deep link validator tool provides a full report of all the links found in your manifest file, and checks whether each link is configured correctly. If all your links are valid, a list of all the valid links will be shown.

After we validate, you’ll find up to 3 tabs on the validation table.

For Android

Domains that failed website checks tab

• This tab is based on domains since a domain can be associated with multiple apps, and vice versa.
• In the table, you’ll find the list of domains that failed website checks, how many website checks failed for each domain.
• By clicking on "View Details", you can find all the checks performed on this domain, which ones passed and failed, and what you need to do to fix each failed check.
• Under the same "View Details" page, you can click on the “links under domain” tab to find all the links that are associated with this domain.

Note: If one or more of the domains in your app fails website checks, all the App Links in your app will not work as intended. When clicking on those links, the app may still open, but the dialog which allows the user to select which app will open the link will show.

Links that failed app checks tab

• In the table, you can find the list of links that failed app checks per link, and whether it was validated as an App Link or Custom URL Scheme, and how many app checks it failed.
• You can click on "View Details" to find a detailed view of all the checks performed, which ones passed or failed, and how to fix the failed ones.

Any link check other than a Custom URL Schemes check will require a different setup. Learn more about setting up custom schemes for Android apps.

Valid links tab

• In the table, you can find the list of links that failed app checks per link, and whether it was validated as an App Link or Custom URL Scheme.
• You can click on "View Link Report" to find a preview (if available) and a QR code for the landing page that this deep link leads to in the app as well as all the related checks that we performed for this link.

For iOS

Domains that failed website checks tab

• In the table, you can find the list of domains that failed one or more website checks, and the number of website checks failed for each domain.
• By selecting "View Details", you can view all the checks performed on the domain, which checks passed and failed, and a suggestion to fix each failed check.

Domains that passed website checks tab

• In the table, you can view the list of links that passed website checks and you can select “View Details” for each domain.
• Under “View Details”, click “App check validation” and scan the QR code to ensure that the deeplink is set up correctly in the app.

Domains with recommended updates tab

• In the table, you can view the list of links where some updates are recommended. These updates are recommended based on Apple’s developer guidelines.
• You can select “View Details” for each domain. Under “View Details”, click “App check validation” and scan the QR code to ensure that the deeplink is set up correctly in the app.

How to download or send the full report

In the full report, you’ll find how many of your links won’t work and the app version we validated. To download or send the full report, click “Full report” in the “Deep Link validator” page.

Related links

• About the Deep link validator
• Deep link