Slowly but surely, Flash is hacking away at the reasons people hate it. Flash has crossed a big bridge with the recent news that both Google and Yahoo! can now search content in SWF files. Yeah, I’m as suprised as you. Here’s a quick breakdown of the news, based on this article from the Flash team.

Q: Why is this news important?
A: Because all SWF files that may have had relevant and informative content were essentially invisible to all search engines before this announcement.

Q: Why is Adobe doing this?
A: To legitimize Flash sites as a viable, search friendly option and to give the Flash haters one less reason to complain.

Q: Which versions of the SWF file format will benefit from this improved indexing and searching?
A: All of them. Yeah, every single one. Yup, that kind too.

Q: What do content owners and developers need to do to their SWF content to benefit from improved search results?
A: Zip, Zilch, Nada. Now go have a margarita and tell your clients how much of a genius you are.

Q: What technology has Adobe contributed to this effort?
A: A custom Flash Player that returns links and text from within the flash file.

Q: How are Google and Yahoo! using the Adobe Flash technology?
A: To deliver improved web search capabilities for SWF applications.

Q: When will the improved SWF searching solutions go live?
A: Google is rolling them out now and Yahoo! is hot on their heels.

Q: How will this announcement benefit the average user/consumers?
A: You can now sit through garish animations knowing that the content your about to see is, in fact, relative to your search.

Q: When will the new results register on Google?
A: Now.

Q: How will this announcement benefit SWF content producers?
A: This announcement will help legitimize the use of Flash as a platform for building sites with content that needs to be indexed by search engines.

Q: Does this affect the searchability of video that runs in Adobe Flash Player?
A: Unfortunately, no.

Q: Will Adobe Flex applications now be more easily found by Google search, including those that access remote data?
A: Yes, yes and yes.

Q: Does Adobe recommend a specific process for deep-linking into a SWF RIA?
A: No one at Adobe named names, but SWF Address does a good job. They also recommend creating a site map XML file.

Q: Is Adobe planning on providing this capability to other search vendors too?
A: Yeah. All you Windows Live Search users can breathe easy now.

For some deeper reading, here are a couple more articles including an official press release from Adobe and Google:

The official word from Google
Adobe Press Release

On a final note, I’ve read a couple places that even with these advances, content loaded dynamically into flash will not be crawled. If this is true, then it makes this news a little less punchy.

Tags: finally, google, index, search engine, SEO, swf, yahoo!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.