News Source: http://searchengineland.com
Published: Jul 01, 2008 - 07:46 am
Story Found By: tonyadam 1814 Days ago
Category: SEM
21 Comments
Sorry this site requires JavaScript to be enabled in your browser. See the following guide on How to enable JavaScript in Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox and Safari. Alternatively you may be blocking JavaScript with an advert-related or developer plugin. Please check your browser plugins.
News Source: http://searchengineland.com
Published: Jul 01, 2008 - 07:46 am
Story Found By: tonyadam 1814 Days ago
Category: SEM
21 Comments
Upcoming Conferences
Search Engine Land produces SMX, the Search Marketing Expo conference series. SMX events deliver the most comprehensive educational and networking experiences - whether you're just starting in search marketing or you're a seasoned expert.
Join us at an upcoming SMX event:
- SMX East - October 1-3, 2013
- SMX Stockholm - October 14-15, 2013
- SMX Milan - November 7-8, 2013
- SMX Social Media Marketing - November 20-21, 2013
- SMX Israel - January 2014
- SMX West - March 11-13, 2014
- SMX Munich - March 25-26, 2014
- SMX Sydney - April 2014
- SMX London - May 2014
- SMX Advanced - June 2014
Latest News From Marketing Land
- iCrossing CEO Don Scales Leaving Company, Will Be Replaced By Brian Powley
- Survey: 96 Percent Say “Do Not Track” Should Be Respected
- Nearly 30 Percent Of UK Travel Searchers Use Mobile Exclusively
- Google Surveys Glass Explorers With Questions Hinting At Public Sale
- 5 Ways To Put Your Email Call To Action To Work
- - See more news at Marketing Land -
Upcoming Webcasts
Learn more about search marketing with our free online webcasts and webinars from our sister site, Digital Marketing Depot. Upcoming online events include:
- Get PPC Results – Optimize Your Landing Experience - Jul 18
- Link building made simple: FAQ’s on link building - Jul 16
- Email+Social = Profitable Client Retention - Jun 26
- Enhanced Campaigns: New Effective PPC Techniques - Jun 19
- Impacting Local SEO Rankings with Local Business Listing Management - Jun 27
Research:
- Enterprise Social Media Management Software 2013
- B2B Marketing Automation Tools 2013: The Buyer’s Guide
- Enterprise SEO Tools 2013: A Buyer’s Guide
Whitepapers:
- 7 Inbound Marketing Service Ideas to Grow Your Agency
- PPC Bid Management Guide
- The Marketer’s Guide to Driving ROI From Facebook Advertising
- Collaborative Customer Interactions Management
- How To Create a Data-Driven Dynasty
Latest News From Search Engine Land
- New Updates To Bing Ads Intelligence, Excel Add-In For Keyword Research And Analysis
- AdWords Advertisers Can Now Control Sitelink Details In Enhanced Campaigns
- How Search Retargeting Kick Started The Programmatic Marketing Revolution
- The Quintessential Marketer Scientist
- Google Changes Ranking Advice, Says Build Quality Sites Not Links
- - See more news at Search Engine Land -
Comments
Excellent, my 1px x 1px cookie dropping flash file will now contain a 10,000 word article and loads of juicy links ;o)
Bad Donkey! /smack...not a bad idea tho ;)
I just hope developers read this whole article and don’t assume that their prayers have been answered or they could go with Donkey’s suggestion.
Yep as Danny quoted Adobe:"RIA developers and rich Web content producers won’t need to amend existing and future content to make it searchable — they can be confident it can now be found by users around the globe."That’s just made our lives that little bit harder. Most PDFs can be "searched" and "found", doesn’t mean you should make a website in that format.
I agree with sem and Nick. Lots to think about...
For developers that have chosen Flash intentionally because it was the best platform (primarily web applications) this is great news. But I find that the most common Flash sites are built in Flash not because it was the best platform for the site, but because it was the most attainable (the designer didn’t need to contend with all those messy browser and CSS problems). In these cases, I think the upshot will simply be to make the bad choice of Flash more acceptable since Flash sites can "now be searched by Google."
There are a number of important comments on the original Google blog post about this which I would love to see answered. Can anyone shed any light?Google states that they ’may’ be unable to index flash files loaded via JavaScript. What about SWFobject? Can we assume this method is ok?In which case will using SWFobject to serve both flash and alternative HTML for search engines lead to duplicate content issues? What do we do about that?Many flash sites load all their text via xml files. If these are not considered part of the SWF by googlebot doesn’t that defeat the point a bit?Would be grateful for Sphinners’ thoughts on this.
I think this could well make the results worse.It didn’t take me long to find this very useful website.http://www.ccms.me.uk/Testimonials%20Flash2.swf
Surely this will lead to a whole stack of blackhat flash techniques? Hidden text in Flash files - can Adobe’s plug-in deal with that? Tiny flash files with loads of links, keywords, the works?And how on earth do we, as SEOs find out why out competitors are ranking so highly when they have a blank page with a small blank flash movie on the page if we can’t read it ourselves.I foresee some hasty revisions going on before long!
Interesting points, parp, although I would argue that inbound links (and associated spam techniques) will far outweight any flash file spamming.But that doesn’t mean that unscrupulous types won’t give it (flash spam) the old college try.
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit - I always loved the fact that search engines seemed to be one of our last remaining defenses against an onslaught of Flash web designs
I bet they won’t give flash text as much weight in the ranking algorithm as html text. I still wouldn’t build an all-flash site.
Still wondering about use of SWFobject. Will content in html and flash "versions" be called out as duped now?
This is such a good news..^^ especially that two of my sites have flash items on them..^^ anyways t5hanks for sharing this nice post!
Will they accord value to links, though? If so, how? Hmmm. FlashRank, anyone?
My guest is Google will never be able totally trust flash content. We can’t expect miracles on this. In my opinion, it’s nothing more than a PR message with a few truths inside.
I am not falling for this marketing hype. The hype makes it seem that the Flash limitations have been sufficiently addressed, but clearly that’s bogus. No formatting detection. Having to have a separate URL for each piece of content is something that most Flash developers will balk at or not even know or care to deal with. No meta info.The list of "not included" aspects that are vital to every best practices SEO initiative is just too great for Flash to be considered a viable solution for a web site that relies on site-centrict content SEO and not just back-links. Adobe has been claiming that they’ve got the SEO thing down since how many versions ago now? Give me a break.
Parp has a great point - Spammers are just going to fill Flash files with trash and spam and noise.
they won’t give text in flash text enough weight to make it an effective spamming system.
Pros1. A few million all Flash pages can now be indexed.2. Adobe can woot their development tools are Google-friendly.Cons1. Lack of meta data, like titles, on Flash objects.2. Much Flash content is visual or audio, not text.3. Search engines are not going to type things into Flash forms to see what content pops out.4. No solution here for deep linking to Flash content.5. SWF files in the SERPS are generally not what you want. You want visitors to view your pages, not a Flash object that appears within your page. Oye. This Kool Aid from Google and Adobe is going to cause a lot of confusion.
curious, i’d always assumed that google couldn’t read flash because of shortcomings with googlebot but from the look of this story, it was always adobe holding back on a suitable "flash reader" for search engines.a question of too little/too late. SEOers have know that flash was unreadable since 1996 and trusting website owners have taken a bath when their graphic designer cum website designer has delivered an all-flash site that is mostly invisible to SEs and has zero possibility of ranking on anything but the most obscure terms.it’s taken adobe (or flash’s earlier owners) 12 years to come up with a solution?what a joke.