Handling Android app referrers like "com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox"?

[kingo55]

I've been seeing a lot of traffic recently from "com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox". I suspect it's users that have searched from the home screen in Android.

Should we classify this under google / search?

[alexanderdean]

Sounds like google / search to me...

[kingo55]

Actually - there's a whole bunch of them:

SELECT page_referrer AS page_referrer,
       COUNT(*) AS count
FROM atomic.events
WHERE collector_tstamp >= '2016-04-18 08:17:01.000000'
  AND collector_tstamp <= '2016-07-17 08:17:01.000000'
  AND refr_urlscheme = 'android-app'
GROUP BY page_referrer
ORDER BY count DESC LIMIT 5000

[alexanderdean]

Hey @kingo55 did you mean to share the result of the query?

[kingo55]

Hi @alexanderdean - my bad... here you go:

page_referrer	count
android-app://com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox	433817
android-app://com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox/https/www.google.com	31848
android-app://com.google.android.apps.genie.geniewidget	7470
android-app://com.google.android.apps.plus/https/plus.url.google.com/mobileapp	446
android-app://com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox/googlequicksearchbox/suggest	334
android-app://org.telegram.messenger	175
android-app://com.pinterest	165
android-app://com.laurencedawson.reddit_sync.pro	46
android-app://com.laurencedawson.reddit_sync	39
android-app://arun.com.chromer	32
android-app://com.Slack	21
android-app://com.noinnion.android.greader.reader	21
android-app://org.telegram.plus	17
android-app://com.andrewshu.android.reddit	15
android-app://com.paladin.auto.car.news.reviews	10
android-app://com.noinnion.android.greader.readerpro	9
android-app://com.laurencedawson.reddit_sync.dev	7
android-app://com.hanista.mobogram	4
android-app://com.google.android.apps.social.spaces	4
android-app://com.linkedin.android	3
android-app://com.levelup.palabre	2
android-app://com.tumblr	2
android-app://com.andrewshu.android.redditdonation	2
android-app://com.innologica.inoreader	2
android-app://ir.felegram	1

[alexanderdean]

Waho! Quite a list. My question is, how do we know all of these are using Google search?

[kingo55]

Sorry @alexanderdean I changed the title on you.

When I discovered other referers, I figured we might need to take a step back. I just don't know enough about what these are yet to recommend how we classify them or approach them. Many look like social referers from other apps.

But they're missing further details on the referrer. Aka no query.

It's also unclear how the apps are generating /passing the referrer. It only started in March or May in our dataset.

[alexanderdean]

Agree, I have made the title even more conditional to reflect the uncertainty.

[ghost]

We also get a lot of android referrers right now. And we really need the information if this referrer comes from a search engine or not

>>> logs.filter(logs.referrer.uri.substr(0, 14) == "android-app://").select(logs.referrer.uri.alias("uri")).groupBy("uri").agg({"uri": "count"}).show(truncate=False)
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------+
|uri                                                                               |count(uri)|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------+
|android-app://com.stickypassword.android                                          |1         |
|android-app://com.google.android.apps.plus/https/plus.url.google.com/mobileapp    |10        |
|android-app://com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox                             |399125    |
|android-app://com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox/https/www.google.com        |14231     |
|android-app://com.Slack                                                           |15        |
|android-app://com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox/googlequicksearchbox/suggest|50        |
|android-app://de.idealo.android                                                   |38        |
|android-app://com.android.chrome                                                  |16        |
|android-app://com.twitter.android                                                 |3         |
|android-app://org.telegram.messenger                                              |97        |
|android-app://com.twitpane.premium                                                |2         |
|android-app://com.google.android.apps.social.spaces                               |8         |
|android-app://com.guardian                                                        |2         |
|android-app://com.linkedin.android                                                |1         |
|android-app://org.telegram.plus                                                   |3         |
|android-app://com.pinterest                                                       |4648      |
|android-app://com.google.android.apps.genie.geniewidget                           |10        |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------+

[chepchepcirkus]

Hi everybody,
i also hunt informations about this kind of url android-app://com.*, my web application generates some exception while handling this referer url, have you some fresh news about that ?

Kind regards

[scottbullard]

@chepchepcirkus - same here. All of the sudden we're receiving a spike in these android-app scheme referrals resulting in:
RefererParser::InvalidUriError: Only HTTP and HTTPS schemes are supported -- android-app

Submitted a PR: #145

[garywoodfine]

I have seen a wave of this
when investigating I am starting to suspect it is some type of Referer spam
It seems to give the title Wordpress Android App but the referer has this type of link

http://android-app//com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox/https/www.google.com

Strongly suspect junk