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iDevelopCommunity
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Joined: 16 Mar 2006
Posts: 255
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 Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:22 am Post subject: Google and Flash |
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How does today's Google interpret Flash? Can Google interpret Flash at all?
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jimmybob
Joined: 19 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 7:19 am Post subject: |
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I don't think it can, Google prefers html/php/any language which it can pull apart the text. Flash is an application so the text, etc is embedded within the executable.
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seo
Joined: 16 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 7:28 am Post subject: |
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I guess so. While there are so many poorly designed flash sites, flash is a very useful tool. Yet, none of search engines can read content created using flash. Search engine developers and flash developers never had any meaningful discussion, either. This is why flash hasn't been able to get visibility in search engines, and thus, it has not been able to attract many developers. Too bad.
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frankcow
Joined: 26 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 1:13 pm Post subject: |
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Actually there was some interesting press around this about a year ago. Google does indeed now have the technology to index flash files. Think about it, it would be in Macromedia's best interests to help them have this ability, otherwise more webmasters will stop using flash if they know it's not being indexed
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seo
Joined: 16 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 11:05 pm Post subject: |
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The following is one of articles that explain this.
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As you know, a Flash movie as the index page of a site has always been a major problem with search engine optimization. There's simply no content for the search engines to index.
So when I learned that Google can index the contents of Macromedia Flash movies, I was astonished. It seemed this remarkable discovery had gone virtually unnoticed in the SEO community.
But as you probably know, Google has always been the first to index different types of content: PDF files, .doc files, etc. Google has also made amazing inroads in being able to index dynamic content.
And now they're the first major search engine to index Flash another significant step forward in the SEO industry.
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It's been two years plus since this technology was introduced, but not that many flash sites have high rankings though.
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frankcow
Joined: 26 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 2:31 am Post subject: |
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that's because most flash animations don't have a lot of text, therefore they aren't all that keyword rich
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seo
Joined: 16 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 6:14 am Post subject: |
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| frankcow wrote: | | that's because most flash animations don't have a lot of text, therefore they aren't all that keyword rich |
I'm guessing that most flash developers aren't taking SEO seriously. From what I read the article, the best flash can do now is to make keywords visible to search engines. SEO is no differential geometry or nuclear physics, but it's more much that staffing keywords. I get the feeling that flash still isn't very ideal when you think about SEO.
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retsop
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seo
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| Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 6:41 am Post subject: |
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| retsop wrote: | Google is analysing the flash content. Is not such a big deal. Anyway probably they can parse only the text and not the shapes and etc 
Regards |
Yeah, but I'm not so sure if Google can extract links. Also can Google extract text sizes? Can Google extract equivalent of tags like h1, h2 and h3? If Google can't do that, then there is no good reason why you still want to use flash.
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frankcow
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| Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 11:31 am Post subject: |
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Not really, because in Flash everything is vector based. Size is relative, it means nothing
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seo
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| Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 11:53 pm Post subject: |
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| frankcow wrote: | | Not really, because in Flash everything is vector based. Size is relative, it means nothing |
So, we basically come to the same conclusion. Flash is no good when it comes to SEO. So, we need to think twice before we decide to use Flash because the decision to use it will automatically give you a big disadvantage in terms of SEO.
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frankcow
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retsop
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Damnz
Joined: 16 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 4:43 am Post subject: |
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Yes, Google does index flash files. Just search for "http://google.com?search=filetype:swf anyword" and you'll be getting some swf files. The problem with flash files is that Google cannot identify the links to other pages which were embedded into flash. So if you were to put up a flash site, I suggest you put up a non-flash version too.
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seo
Joined: 16 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 10:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Damnz wrote: | | Yes, Google does index flash files. Just search for "http://google.com?search=filetype:swf anyword" and you'll be getting some swf files. The problem with flash files is that Google cannot identify the links to other pages which were embedded into flash. So if you were to put up a flash site, I suggest you put up a non-flash version too. |
Yeah, that's what I was mentioning about. SEO is no rocket science, but there are things you need to do, and one of things you need to do is to create links. Flash cannot do that as far as search engines are concerned.
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