Google Sees Flash. So What?
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Late in June Google and Adobe announced an arrangement whereby the search engine could now read and index Shockwave Flash files. The move has been hailed as a huge step forward, since Flash has up until now been invisible to the search engines – and therefore invisible to searchers. But this isn't quite the panacea it appears to be.
Let's begin our discussion with the official announcements from Google and Adobe. According to Adobe's web site, the software maker's contribution to this deal includes “optimized Adobe Flash Player technology” which it is providing to both Google and Yahoo. The technology will help the search engines index the many rich Internet applications (RIAs) that use the SWF file format. Basically, using Adobe's technology, the search engine bots can navigate through a live SWF application as if they were virtual users. Best of all, RIA producers won't need to change anything about their content to make it searchable.
Granted, this is fairly exciting news. Google says the new technology covers SWF files of all kinds. “This includes Flash 'gadgets' such as buttons and menus, self-contained Flash websites, and everything in between,” the company explains in a post about the arrangement. Since TechCrunch estimated that there are about 73 million Flash files on the web, that's a lot of stuff that was invisible suddenly getting indexed.
For those who keep track of these things, it's interesting to note that no direct mention of Microsoft was made in either the Adobe or the Google announcements. A number of observers have speculated that this apparent snub has something to do with Silverlight, the technology Microsoft created to compete with Flash. As to whether Adobe is planning to provide its Flash indexing technology to other search vendors, its press release said only that “Adobe wants to help make all SWF content more easily searchable. As we roll out the solution with Google and Yahoo!, we are also exploring ways to make the technology more broadly available.”
While most of this is good news, there's a lot that remains unsaid – and a lot that will remain invisible. Not everything in a Flash file will be indexed. And not all Flash files will be indexed. In short, Google and Yahoo may now be able to see these files, but they still need glasses -- of a strength as yet unprovided by Adobe or anyone else -- to make out certain details. Keep reading to see what I mean.
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