Google began indexing Flash - Designer Sara Web

Google starts indexing Flash

The news that Google is starting to index Flash content has also impressed a couple of months ago, web designers engaged in the development of Adobe Flash. And in fact a historical barrier would fall. Given that Google is currently the main source of access to the most sites, the use of Flash was strongly inhibited, so far, not so much from usability (though Flash does not necessarily have to be avoided, but used well, to provide value added, on average, higher skills and requires the use of HTML / CSS), but the lack of searchability.

Why now? Why Adobe has released a version of the player-specific search engines, which can exploit the qualities to "read" the text content in Flash. Not everyone, however: text, links and buttons. Text contained in images, video and animation continue to not be found, like metadata or markup language may be contained in the Flash file. Even so, however, is a big step forward. Also exceeded the limit of invisibility Flash engines when inserted into the page via JavaScript, like SWFObject and techniques SWFObject2 (if you are interested in indexing and SEO there are interesting details here).

On the horizon there is now a well-defined market, that of RIA, Rich Internet Applications. The main players in the industry are, again, trying to impose its own standards in what we imagine will be all the more important ground in the coming years, online applications. Adobe AIR, which mixes Javascript and Flash, and Microsoft with its Silverlight are the main standards that are trying to occupy this juicy field.

Once the formats and languages ??is claimed gaining a broad base of developers. Now is not enough: you need the search engines. A web application whose content and services which are not returned by Google is a lame duck. This demonstrates once again the central role played by Google in the current web. And Microsoft? First, Google announced the Silverlight RIA indexing.

It will do so in the future? Robert Scoble doubt it. But this does not mean doing a disservice to its users? ...
But above all, for now MSN has not announced plans to index Flash files (while Yahoo! yes, appending to Google). What impact will this not just for Silverlight, but MSN itself? This is just a taste of how wars will be held to the standards of the commercial future.