Linking to your app

Customers need to know about your app before they can download and purchase it. You can help customers discover your app by linking it to it.

Getting a link to your app

When your app is published into the Windows Store, a web version of your app listing page is automatically created for you in all markets and languages where your app is available. These web-based listings provide an opportunity for users on any platform to learn more about your app and are the best way to share your app through email or social networks when you don’t know what platform your audience is on. If a user visits a web-based listing page while on Windows 8 and on a browser that supports Windows 8 protocols, they will see the View in Windows Store button, allowing them to transition to the app listing page in the Windows Store.

The web listing surfaces all the content you submitted for your app in the Windows Store Dashboard including info shown on the Overview and Details tabs of the Store-based listing, along with the price and user rating information. This makes the data available on the web to be indexed by search engines, and makes your app easier for users to discover.

To access the link to your app

1. Sign in to your Windows Store dashboard.
2. Click on an app that is listed in the Windows Store.
3. Access the Details page of that app.

At the bottom of the page, you'll find a link to your app's web listing page.

Linking to your app using Internet Explorer 10

Internet Explorer 10 provides additional means to connect your web site to your app. To learn more, read:

• Connect your website to your Windows Store app
• Invoke applications directly in Internet Explorer 10

Linking directly to your app in the Windows Store

You also have the option of creating a link that goes directly to your app's listing page in the Windows Store. These links are very useful if you know your user is on Windows 8, and you want to be sure that they arrive directly at the listing page for a specific app in the Store. For example, after checking a user agent string for “Windows NT 6.2,” or when you are communicating with the user via a Windows Store app, you’ll know your users are on Windows 8, so you can apply this protocol. Currently, up-to-date versions of Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox support Windows 8 protocols.

You can create your own Windows Store protocol link by appending the Package Family Name of your app to the URL:

ms-windows-store:PDP?PFN=

You can retrieve the Package Family Name for your app either from Microsoft Visual Studio, or by visiting your app’s web-based listing page and viewing the page source.

The Store rejects any protocol requests that don’t match one of the supported actions or that have invalid or missing parameters. For requests that are properly formatted but result in an inaccessible page, the Store displays an error page.

When the Store receives a protocol request, it transitions to the appropriate page as if the user had done so in the Store itself. The Store maintains navigation history and state, just as it does for a user action.

Protocol actions

Here are the actions you can use with the Windows Store protocol.

Build date: 3/19/2013