New Google Algorithim for Flash!

[Brandon W]

Well in one of my monthly magazines, I actually read an interesting article last month about Adobe teaming up with the big search engine companies to help improve Flash indexing. This was announced a while ago but last month it mentioned that Google was close. And in this month they mentioned that Google has created a algorithm for this. Here is the article.

Last issue we brought you important information on how to deep-link into Flash web content, and this time there is even better news for Flash web developers. The king of internet searching, Goggle, has come up with a fantastic algorithm to read the text elements of Flash websites. The algorithm works by emulating the way people use Flash content, so the Googlebot will click buttons and fill in forms in order to get access to deeper content within the Flash file. The great news for developers using Flash is that they don't have anything to do anything at all to the sites that they create.
Adobe has also teamed up with other major search engines so that your visitors should be able to get the access to your content across the board. More information can be found at Adobe - Developer Center : SWF searchability FAQ, which details how Adobe has openly published the SWF specification, describing the file format and how it is delivered. There is a great FAQ at the Goggle website (Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Improved Flash indexing) that asks all the important questions that you want to know. This is a major breakthrough in the Flash community, as developers previously had to think about user experience versus page ranking, which is now not even an issue.

Quite an interesting read. I am going to visit the sites now

[Jordan]

That is fantastic news! One of the biggest problems with flash is that it removed search engine indexing. Now that Google has created this, I bet Flash will become popular again.

[John]

Flash has dead.

[Brandon W]

Maybe Jordan.


Google is the only one that has integrated this so far, and they only own about 55% of the market. That still means there is 45% free, Yahoo! has also teamed up with Adobe so they will eventually be able to index it as well. With what I have heard with what Microsoft is doing with Windows Live might mean that they will take a lot of the market. Maybe Flash might become more popular.

I remember you saying before that Flash is dead John. But I don't think it is completely dead. It is still quite popular if you are talking about designers. Designers use a lot of Flash mainly for a rich user experience. For Developers I don't think Flash would be the best of choices, but compared to Silverlight, Flash is much more popular.

[Jordan]

I still see some sites using it, not many though.

Posted via CodeCall Mobile

[Brandon W]

Of course some sites still use it, sites that are looking for the highest RIA's. One of them being the Lynx Effect.
The Lynx Effect

Take a look around, there is only one of them that I read in my magazine. Probably my favourite I have seen so far.

[WingedPanther]

I think Flash is useful for web games, but should not be used for content. I basically quit going to movie sites because of the big flash fad a few years ago.

[Xav]

You can always create virtual URLs to allow sections of Flash to be bookmarked (and henced picked up by search engines).

[Brandon W]

Yer, I read about that in the magazine too. Deep contenting or something :S

[Xav]

Flash has dead.

Perhaps you would like to pick one of the following:

Flash is dead.
Flash has died.

lol