Flash Files links and content Now Indexed by Google!

[Dubbya]

Using the Flash Search Engine SDK, Google is now able to decompress, read links and content embedded inside .swf files developed in Macromedia Flash (one would naturally assume this applies to files developed in Swish as well). The Flash Search Engine SDK code supports SWF files created for Flash Player 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

How does it work?

The SDK includes an application named ‘swf2html’. Swf2html extracts text and links from a Flash .SWF file, and returns the data to stdout or as an HTML document. Swf2html is provided as a compiled application, and as a static library for linked library implementation. For complete functionality, see the file Readme.htm included in the SDK.

Using the SDK tool, any developer can get the text output from the SWF and see how search engines view the extractable text of any SWF. On a Windows operating system, you can go to the DOS prompt and execute the swf2HTML application very easily.

Flash 8 does allow you to input meta data for the Title and Description and the SDK is fairly intelligent in terms of recognizing text and links that are embedded in the file.

More on how it works:
Optimizing Flash Files for the Search Engines


FAQ:
Adobe - Player Licensing : Search Engine SDK FAQ

Flash developers can download the Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK from the Adobe site and see what the SE's would...
Adobe - Player Licensing

[mtuba4u]

This is all very good and appriciated, but

What happens to the ratio between total page size and key word elements?

This is an important factor for search engines, and if the relationship is out side of certain limits these are ignored, and you loose out on you SEO efforst just because you use flash or other animated graphics.

What I mean here is that your ratio between total file size and key words is a factor... the bigger files need more text, but if you are not carefull you will easily be accused of keyword STUFFING and loose all your good efforts, so be carefull......

using graphics on a page can influence your SERP (Search Engine Results Positioning) very negitively if you have many images.

having no images is also not an excelent idea, as viewers do want some eye pleasing features, the real trick is to get the balance between visual appeal and SERP with META TAGs in the head section and other tricks such as image titles, descriptions, and purpose within the body section.

Just because these flash files are indexed does not mean that you will now jump to the top of search engine listings if you use FLASH.....

you still need to do the whole SEO thing and find the balance which your target market defines during your target market research stage.

this is some thing a lot of people are ignoring, and the results speak fore them selves, as your key words are defined by your target market perception management issues.

You need to manage your target markets perception of your pages, and this is really tricky, as once your viewers realise that you are manipulating their next move they are out of there like a shot out of a cannon, and will not be easily enticed back to your pages.

so the real trick is and always will be, how to entice your audience to visit your sales pages, and by your products or use your services.

[Dubbya]

You're correct in many of your statements, however the purpose of the post was simply to let others know that Flash sites and flash content is no longer a complete waste of time in terms of SEO. Done properly, they can now prove to be of some value in terms of relevance.

I think this is quite exciting, especially for the die-hard supporters of Flash! Though I think it'll be quite some time before the SE's are able to fully index and spider flash files in a method comparative to the way they read through HTML source code, at least having your file descriptions and keywords read will be of SOME benefit,

And you're right, some developers may attempt to stuff keywords, but that would be foolish and counterproductive at this point as SE's are becoming increasingly intelligent.

[joshjones]

I noticed this thread was fairly recent... please remember this has been available for some time, over a year I believe the SDK for search engines was released.

It does have some issues, and dynamic flash text is not indexed as it's not loaded with the flash SWF file... thus any dynamic data is not indexed... obviously there are workarounds, embedding text, etc...

But overall, I agree with you hear, there are a lot of folks who say flash is not indexed... and it has been for some time!?

my other two cents worth is that I think search engines should continue to be creative in their approaches. It should be thier job to properly index whatever is on the web... not my job to make thier job easier... they're smart, they'll figure it out

[webmax]

[quote=Dubbya;345857]On a Windows operating system, you can go to the DOS prompt and execute the swf2HTML application very easily.

I'm trying to follow you but got lost somewhere. I'm doing Start, Run, swf2html -t -o output.html input.swf and the black box says that it cannot recognize the command. Am I not supposed to put swf2html.exe somewhere special first? Right now it's just sitting on the desktop. I could not find any info about this in the Adobe site and the Readme only talks about what happens after you get swf2html to work, not how to install it. How do I specify a path to the actual swf file that I want to work on? Or do I have to put it somewhere? As you can tell, I'm only your garden variety web designer and know little about programming, but I absolutely need to optimize an all-flash site. Your help is very much appreciated.

[kevsta]

if it needs to rank well I would still be looking at an html version alongside personally.

"can index" is not the same as "will rank well" and is unlikely to be for a little while yet imo..