2. Deep Link — Types

With our understanding of what Deeplinks are, let us learn the common flavours of implementing them. There are three deep linking technology standards that are popular today: URI schemes, Universal Links, and App Links. URI schemes are first generation deep linking methodology, but it could not scale due to scheme registration requirements (more on that in a minute). This led iOS and Android to develop their own standards namely, Universal Links and App Links, respectively.

With variations in the implementation and configuration of all these, it gets confusing even to a seasoned developer.

Let us try to break down how these work.

URI schemes

URI schemes were the O.G of deeplinks. The word to be underlined here is the scheme. Every in-app content is assigned a unique address which can be tapped by users to run apps or explore resources. Like convention hyperlinks that start with a protocol, the URIs under this method starts with a “scheme” . The scheme (custom noun) is registered by each mobile app.

The following is a standard structure of a URI.

mycustomname://path-to-a-resource?param=value

In the example above, mycustomname:// is the scheme or the protocol. A mobile app can register its own custom URI scheme that distinguishes itself from others…