Redirect to Google Play - strange behavior of some browsers

[pbksoft]

Hello,
I have recently faced some issue related to how some Android browsers behave. I wanted to start some "campaign" (too big word, but can't find better one) to promote my app and I created a landing page on my webpage that users are routed to when they scan a QR code with a link. Now, what I want to do is to register the fact that someone used this link with some code on my landing page (easy) and automatically redirect users to Google Play. It works, but user experience is not the best when the page is accessed from mobile phones. And it works inconsistently among browsers.

First, the ideal solution would be to issue redirect HTTP response (301) to the browser. This works great in Chrome. The browser tries to open a page, but then Google Play app is automatically opened when a redirect is received. Great! But in Opera the behavior is slightly different. Google Play opens as well, but not as a Google Play mobile app but as a web page inside the browser. So installing the app etc. is difficult. I discovered that when instead of returning 301 response I return 200 OK and a valid HTML page with "meta refresh" tag, Opera then opens Google Play as a mobile app. But this time the experience is not the best one either because you have another page that needs to be rendered, is kept in a browser history, navigation through a back button is problematic etc.

Has anyone faced the same issue and knows the way to achieve opening Google Play as a mobile app in all Android browsers and not being forced to serve redirecting page with "meta refresh" tag? Any help will be welcome.

 

[Rukbat]

If you redirect to https://play.google.com/store, it's going to bring up a web page - Play's page.

 

[pbksoft]

I redirect to Google Play store listing as described here: https://developer.android.com/distribute/marketing-tools/linking-to-google-play

Well, even if I use http link (not market://, I cannot use market because it does not work out of Android world) in Chrome it displays the Google Play app. In fact, I can even select if I want it to be opened in a browser or in Google Play app, if I don't have any app selected as default handler for these types or URL-s, but the key point is that I can make it to open Google Play native app.

In Opera it always displays Google Play as a web page when using redirect (301 response code).