There are three types of App Store Short Links, in two forms, one for iOS apps, another for Mac Apps:

iOS: http://appstore.com/ for example, http://appstore.com/apple

Mac: http://appstore.com/mac/ for example, http://appstore.com/mac/apple

iOS: http://appstore.com/ for example, http://appstore.com/keynote

Mac: http://appstore.com/mac/ for example, http://appstore.com/mac/keynote

iOS: http://appstore.com// for example, http://appstore.com/apple/keynote

Mac: http://appstore.com/mac// for example, http://appstore.com/mac/apple/keynote

Most companies and apps have a canonical App Store Short Link. This canonical URL is created by changing or removing certain characters (many of which are illegal or have special meaning in a URL (for example, \'&\')).

Remove all whitespace

Convert all characters to lower-case

Remove all copyright (©), trademark (™) and registered mark (®) symbols

Replace ampersands (\'&\') with \'and\'

Remove most punctuation (See Listing 2 for the set)

Replace accented and other \'decorated\' characters (ü, å, etc.) with their elemental character (u, a, etc.)

Leave all other characters as-is.

Listing 2 Punctuation characters that must be removed.

!¡\'#$%\'()*+,-./:;¿?@[]^_`{|}~

Below are some examples to demonstrate the conversion that takes place.

Gameloft => http://appstore.com/gameloft

Activision Publishing, Inc. => http://appstore.com/activisionpublishinginc

Chen\'s Photography & Software => http://appstore.com/chensphotographyandsoftware

Ocarina => http://appstore.com/ocarina

Where’s My Perry? => http://appstore.com/wheresmyperry

Brain Challenge™ => http://appstore.com/brainchallenge