Comments on: Flash applications can be indexed by search engines

By: Flex SEO Contest : Mihai CORLAN

Flex SEO Contest : Mihai CORLAN — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:40:14 +0000

[...] now, probably you heard about the special player made by Adobe to help Search engines to index Flash applications. But, maybe you don’t know [...]

By: Mihai Corlan

Mihai Corlan — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:41:22 +0000

Yeah, you are right. But looking at the statements I would expect this issue to be address very soon

By: Tink

Tink — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:10:40 +0000

Thanks for the reply.

So at the moment dynamic data isn’t indexed as part of your Flash file.

Obviously any indexing is a plus feature, but without indexing dynamic content, its pretty much only working for banners at the moment ;).

By: Mihai Corlan

Mihai Corlan — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:49:30 +0000

@Tink

Here is an excerpt from the Google FAQ (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/06/improved-flash-indexing.html):

“Q: What are the current technical limitations of Google’s ability to index Flash?
There are three main limitations at present, and we are already working on resolving them:

1. Googlebot does not execute some types of JavaScript. So if your web page loads a Flash file via JavaScript, Google may not be aware of that Flash file, in which case it will not be indexed.
2. We currently do not attach content from external resources that are loaded by your Flash files. If your Flash file loads an HTML file, an XML file, another SWF file, etc., Google will separately index that resource, but it will not yet be considered to be part of the content in your Flash file.
3. While we are able to index Flash in almost all of the languages found on the web, currently there are difficulties with Flash content written in bidirectional languages. Until this is fixed, we will be unable to index Hebrew language or Arabic language content from Flash files.

We’re already making progress on these issues, so stay tuned!”

So, the technology is out there, it is just a matter of time until both Google and Yahoo! will incorporated. As you can see, Google is already working on this.

By: Tink

Tink — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:15:14 +0000

Can you clarify what you mean by

” which has dynamic/static data, Google and Yahoo! will be able to index it and display your application in the search result list if your app is relevant”

Does this mean that all the content of external sources such as XML and databases that are used in an SWF will be indexed as part of it?

i was reading this http://www.visible-form.com/blog/well-at-least-i-didnt-have-to-wonder-for-too-long/ which states that it isn’t. Can you just clarify for me what the special player google and yahoo have can index?