Adobe, Google and Yahoo Team Up For Easier Flash Search

Adobe has agreed to work with Google and Yahoo to make it easier for search engines to index more content built with its Flash software. Previously, Google and Yahoo could only index text and links in Flash animations and applications. Now, with some "optimized Adobe Flash Player technology," they'll be able to "uncover information" in Flash files "that is currently undiscoverable by search engines."

“Until now it has been extremely challenging to search the millions of RIAs and dynamic content on the Web, so we are leading the charge in improving search of content that runs in Adobe Flash Player,” said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of the Platform Business Unit at Adobe. “We are initially working with Google and Yahoo! to significantly improve search of this rich content on the Web, and we intend to broaden the availability of this capability to benefit all content publishers, developers and end users.”

The project will enable searches on Flash content to return text and links, which can then be indexed, and hence available in search results for the users. Content from a Flash application or even a game or advertisement will be available to search engines, reports InfoWorld. Pages containing a Flash .SWF file will be returned in a search.

As for images and videos we are still out of luck. From Google's own description: "If your Flash files only include images, we will not recognize or index any text that may appear in those images. Similarly, we do not generate any anchor text for Flash buttons which target some URL, but which have no associated text. Also note that we do not index FLV files, such as the videos that play on YouTube, because these files contain no text elements."

So far Adobe has decided to provide the optimized Adobe Flash Player technology only for Google and Yahoo, which means that other organizations that are providing search services such as Microsoft’s Live Search or Ask.com won’t be able to index the dynamic Web content and rich Internet applications (RIAs).

Speculation around the web is that Microsoft, the number three search engine in the world, was snubbed due to their Silverlight technology. Silverlight has been viewed as a competitor to Adobe's flash.


Source: Adobe Press Room