Adobe is teaming up with search industry leaders to dramatically improve search results of dynamic web content and rich Internet applications (RIAs). Adobe is providing optimized Adobe Flash Player technology to Google and Yahoo! to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently undiscoverable by search engines. This will provide more relevant automatic search rankings of the millions of RIAs and other dynamic content that run in Adobe Flash Player. Moving forward, RIA developers and rich web content producers won’t need to amend existing and future content to make it searchable—they can now be confident that it can be found by users around the globe.
Why is this news important?
Adobe is working with Google and Yahoo! to enable one of the largest fundamental improvements in web search results by making the Flash file format (SWF) a first-class citizen in searchable web content. This will increase the accuracy of web search results by enabling top search engines to understand what’s inside of RIAs and other rich web content created with Adobe Flash technology and add that relevance back to the HTML page.
Improved search of SWF content will provide immediate benefits to companies leveraging Adobe Flash software. Without additional changes to content, developers can continue to provide experiences that are possible only with Adobe Flash technology without the trade-off of a loss in search indexing. It will also positively affect the Search Engine Optimization community, which will develop best practices for building content and RIAs utilizing Adobe Flash technologies, and enhance the ability to find and monetize SWF content.
Why is Adobe doing this?
The openly published SWF specification describes the file format used to deliver rich applications and interactive content via Adobe Flash Player, which is installed on more than 98 percent of Internet-connected computers. Although search engines already index static text and links within SWF files, RIAs and dynamic web content have been generally difficult to fully expose to search engines because of their changing states—a problem also inherent in other RIA technologies.
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. 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.
Which versions of the SWF file format will benefit from this improved indexing and searching? This solution works with all existing SWF content, across all versions of the SWF file format.
What do content owners and developers need to do to their SWF content to benefit from improved search results? Content owners and developers do not have to do anything to the millions of deployed SWF files to make them more searchable. Existing SWF content is now searchable using Google search, and in the future Yahoo! Search, dramatically improving the relevance of RIAs and rich media experiences that run in Adobe Flash Player. As with HTML content, best practices will emerge over time for creating SWF content that is more optimized for search engine rankings.
What technology has Adobe contributed to this effort?
Adobe has provided Flash Player technology to Google and Yahoo! that allows their search spiders to navigate through a live SWF application as if they were virtual users. The Flash Player technology, optimized for search spiders, runs a SWF file similarly to how the file would run in Adobe Flash Player in the browser, yet it returns all of the text and links that occur at any state of the application back to the search spider, which then appears in search results to the end user.
How are Google and Yahoo! using the Adobe Flash technology?
Google is using the Adobe Flash Player technology now and Yahoo! also expects to deliver improved web search capabilities for SWF applications in a future update to Yahoo! Search. Google uses the Adobe Flash Player technology to run SWF content for their search engines to crawl and provide the logic that chooses how to walk through a SWF. All of the extracted information is indexed for relevance according to Google and Yahoo!’s algorithms. The end result is SWF content adding to the searchable information of the web page that hosts the SWF content, thus giving users more information from the web to search through.
When will the improved SWF searching solutions go live?
Google has already begun to roll out Adobe Flash Player technology incorporated into its search engine. With Adobe’s help, Google can now better read the SWF content on sites, which will help users find more relevant information when conducting searches. As a result, millions of pre-existing RIAs and dynamic web experiences that utilize Adobe Flash technology, including content that loads at runtime, are immediately searchable without the need for companies and developers to alter it. Yahoo! is committed to supporting webmaster needs with plans to support searchable SWF and is working with Adobe to determine the best possible implementation.
How will this announcement benefit the average user/consumers?
Consumers will use industry leading search engines, Google now and Yahoo! Search in the future, exactly as they do today. Indexed SWF files will add more data to what the search engine knows about the page in which it’s embedded, which will open up more relevant content to users, and could cause pages to appear at a higher ranking level in applicable search results. As a result, millions of pre-existing rich media experiences created with Adobe Flash technology will be immediately searchable without the need for companies and developers to alter content.
When will the new results register on Google?
Google is using the optimized Adobe Flash Player technology now, so users will immediately see improved search results. As Google spiders index more SWF content, search results will continue to get better.
How will this announcement benefit SWF content producers?
Organizations can now dramatically improve the rich web experiences they deliver to customers and partners by increasing the use of Adobe Flash technology, which is no longer impeding the ability for users to find those experiences in highly relevant search results. RIA creators and other web content producers can now be confident that their rich media and RIA experiences leveraging Adobe Flash technology are fully searchable by users around the globe who use the dominant search engines. Furthermore, the ability to index information extracted throughout the various states of dynamic SWF applications reduces the need to produce an HTML or XHTML backup for the RIA site as a workaround for prior search limitations.
Does this affect the searchability of video that runs in Adobe Flash Player?
This initial rollout is to improve the search of dynamic text and links in rich content created with Adobe Flash technology. A SWF that has both video and text may be more easily found by improved SWF search.
Will Adobe Flex applications now be more easily found by Google search, including those that access remote data? Yes, any type of SWF content including Adobe Flex applications and SWF created by Adobe Flash authoring will benefit from improved indexing and search results. The improved SWF search also includes the capability to load and access remote data like XML calls and loaded SWFs.
Does Adobe recommend a specific process for deep-linking into a SWF RIA?
Deep-linking, in the case of SWF content and RIAs, is when there is a direct link to a specific state of the application or rich content. A variety of solutions exist today that can be used for deep-linking SWF content and RIAs. It’s important that sites make use of deep links so that links coming into a site will drive relevance to the specific parts of an application.
To generate URLs at runtime that reflect the specific state of SWF content or RIA, developers can use Adobe Flex components that will update the location bar of a browser window with the information that is needed to reconstruct the state of the application.
For complex sites that have a finite number of entry points, you can highlight the specific URLs to a search spider using techniques such as site map XML files. Even for sites that use a single SWF, you can create multiple HTML files that provide different variables to the SWF and start your application at the correct subsection. By creating multiple entry points, you can get the benefits of a site that is indexed as a suite of pages but still only need to manage one copy of your application. For more information on deep-linking best practices, visit www.sitemaps.org/faq.php.
Is Adobe planning on providing this capability to other search vendors too?
Adobe wants to help make all SWF content more easily searchable. As we roll out the solution with Google and Yahoo!, we are also exploring ways to make the technology more broadly available.
About the author. This content was authored by Adobe Systems, Inc.
Written by Adobe.com
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