Search Engine Indexing for Flash Websites is Improving - Google
(Page 2 of 4 )
Google has already integrated the Adobe Flash Player into its search engine. The company has been working on a new algorithm for indexing textual content in Flash files of various types, including self-contained Flash websites, buttons and banners, and Flash menus. The algorithm is similar to what you will see when you click on buttons or enter input. Google’s algorithm stores all of the text that it comes across. It will see the Flash file’s content. The developer can then make this text available to be indexed.
In other words, Google can now match the words that are located in your Flash files with the key words users enter in their searches. In addition, if you’re looking for URLs that are located in Flash files, Google can capture those as well. No doubt, integrating Adobe’s Flash Player technology has helped Google improve its Flash indexing algorithm performance.
Unfortunately, Google will not recognize or index images that have text in them. It also does not index FLV files, particularly videos that are found on YouTube. This is because these files don’t have text elements.
When it comes to getting Google to index the text in your Flash files, you don’t have to do anything. Google will recognize your Flash content on your website, and then will immediately index it. However, if you don’t want words, such as “loading” or “copyright” to be indexed, Google recommends that you insert an image to replace them. As a result, these will be invisible to Google.
There are some caveats to Google’s capability to index Adobe Flash. First, the Googlebot cannot implement certain types of JavaScript. In other words, Google may not be able to recognize the Flash file if your web page is loading a Flash file through JavaScript.
Second, Google will not index any external resources of your Flash file. That is, if your Flash file contains an XML, HTML, or another SWF file, Google will index those files separately. It will not be treated as part of the content in your Flash file. If, on the other hand, the Flash file is embedded in HTML, the content that the URL consists of will be indexed as a single entity.
Third, as far as foreign languages are concerned, Google can index most of those found on the Internet. However, Google has a difficult time indexing Flash text that is written in bidirectional languages, such as Arabic or Hebrew. Google is working on solving all of these problems.
Next: Yahoo! >>
More Search Optimization Articles
More By Joe Eitel
