App Search API Validation Tool displays "example.com is returning 469. Please check your url and try again."

Question

I am online a fresh webpage for the purpose of universal links. I put the file in .well-known folder.

In the server log I can see that Applebot got 200 on "GET /.well-known/apple-app-site-association HTTP/1.1"

The only error displayed in the App Search API Validation Tool is: "example.com is returning 469. Please check your url and try again."

I used another tool to check it - branch.io AASA Validator and it displays no errors.

Answer 1

Also make sure you don't have any robots.txt file in the root that disables Applebot

Robots.txt: allow only major SE

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204683

Answer 2

Looks like apple changed the format of AASA file. According to this official document, the old presentation

{
    "applinks": {
        "apps": [],
        "details": [
            {
                "appID": "{PREFIX}.{BUNDLE_ID}",
                "paths": ["*"]
            }
        ]
    }
}

Had already changed to:

{
    "applinks": {
        "details": [
            {
                "appIDs": [
                    "{PREFIX}.{BUNDLE_ID}"
                ],
                "components": [
                    {
                        "/": "/*"
                    }
                ]
            }
        ]
    }
}

Considering backward compatibility, you can try writing in this format:

{
    "applinks": {
        "apps": [],
        "details": [
            {
                "appID": "{PREFIX}.{BUNDLE_ID}",
                "paths": ["*"],
                "appIDs": [
                    "{PREFIX}.{BUNDLE_ID}"
                ],
                "components": [
                    {
                        "/": "/*"
                    }
                ]
            }
        ]
    }
}

This works for me, hope it helps.

Answer 3

What worked for me was adding image metadata on top of title and description metadata. I also added Touch icons, but I do not think it caused the issue since it works fine on another website I have without it.

Required metadata seems to be: Title, description and Image (og:image was the missing one in my case)

For metadata check out: The Open Graph Protocol

For icons check out: Developer Apple - Configuring Web Applications