When links open the App Store instead of your website

The reverse complaint: you wanted the web page and iOS insisted on an app. Three causes, all fixable from your side.

6 August 2026 by PAD team

A universal link claiming too much

If your apple-app-site-association claims /*, every URL on the domain becomes an app link, including pages meant for the browser. Narrow the components to the paths that genuinely belong to the app, and exclude the rest explicitly:

"components": [
  { "/": "/blog/*", "exclude": true },
  { "/": "/app/*" }
]

Smart App Banner

The meta tag that shows a banner at the top of a page in Safari can also trigger automatic behaviours depending on configuration. If you did not intend to promote the app on a given page, remove the tag from that page rather than from the whole site.

<meta name="apple-itunes-app" content="app-id=123456789">

A store link where you meant a web link

Mundane and common. A tracker or a CMS field left pointing at apps.apple.com from a previous campaign, especially in email templates that get copied year after year.

The user's own preference

Once someone chooses to open a domain in the app, iOS remembers. There is nothing you can do server side, and the user reverses it from the breadcrumb banner in Safari.

Diagnosing

Open the URL in Safari's address bar by typing it. A typed URL never triggers a universal link, so if the app still opens, the cause is something else entirely, most likely a redirect somewhere in your own stack.