labels: Adobe, Yahoo!, Google
Google, Yahoo to make Flash sites searchable thanks to Adobe news
03 July 2008

Thus far, content made in Flash was invisible to search engines. However, that is set to change, with Adobe announcing that it has partnered with search majors Google and Yahoo! On a project that will make Flash files (.swf) indexable by search engines.

Flash developers, for almost a decade, have been hoping and praying for a way to make their content searchable. Till now, as Adobe acknowledged, search engines were able to index static text and links within Flash SWF files, otherwise known as Rich Internet Applications (RIA), while dynamic web content has remained difficult to expose to search on account of their changing states, which has been an issue with other RIA technologies as well.

The announcement could also mean some major usability changes for the better for Flash on the web. A post on Google's Webmaster Central Blog says that it can now index all kinds of textual content in SWF files, such as included in Flash gadgets, buttons, menus, entirely self-contained Flash web sites, "and everything in between." Google will also be able to follow URLs embedded within Flash files, and add to the crawling pipeline.

However, the new indexing technology does not hold good for FLV files, which are video files on the internet that are the bulk of content on websites like YouTube and Google Videos, as they are generated as videos and are devoid of text elements unlike SWF files.

Google's algorithm does this by exploring Flash files in the same manner as a human, by clicking buttons and manually exploring Flash content. It says that the algorithm's effectiveness was improved by utilising Adobe's new Searchable SWF library.

There are still limitations, and works in progress. Google and Yahoo! Will not be able to index anything that is image-related, including text embedded into images. Google also cannot execute certain JavaScripts that might be embedded into a Flash file. It will index content contained in a separate HTML or XML file, but that will not be counted part of the content in the Flash file.

Yahoo! is also working with Adobe to index SWF files, but is said to be trailing Google in its endeavour. Missing from the race is Microsoft, though it remains unclear whether the giant has been excluded by Adobe or has decided to voluntarily abstain.

According to Adobe, Google is already beginning to offer search results including data inside Flash files, and Yahoo will soon follow suit with an update to its search engine.What is set to get off the ground, are more accurate search results for the end users, as there is a lot of information contained within SWF files which will only now be fully indexed. Moreover, content producers too will now able to put Flash files online, knowing that they will being more users via an organic search, that too without having to go the extra mile to make it work on any SWF file.


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Google, Yahoo to make Flash sites searchable thanks to Adobe