Searching multimedia is tremendously difficult with search engines, and Flash content has been no exception, until now. Adobe, Google and Yahoo have teamed up to add lively Web content and rich Internet applications (RIAs) to search results.
Adobe Systems Inc. on Tuesday announced a new initiative with both Google and Yahoo to improve the accuracy of searches for Flash (.SWF) files by delivering an optimized version of its ubiquitous player. But there still is a long way to go.
Adobe is offering “Search Engine Optimized” version of Adobe Flash Player technology to improve indexing of the Flash file format and unearth information currently undiscoverable by search engines.
This will offer more appropriate automatic search rankings of the millions of RIAs and other dynamic content that functions under Adobe Flash Player, according to the companies. That means RIA developers and Web-content producers would not have to modify their content to make it searchable.
“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 operates under Adobe Flash Player,” said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of the platform business unit at Adobe.
Google has already started using Flash Player technology to scan formerly “invisible” content in SWF format Flash files.
“Google has been working hard to develop how we can read and discover SWF files,” said Bill Coughran, senior vice president of engineering at Google. “Through our recent collaboration with Adobe, we now help Web-site owners that choose to design sites with Adobe Flash software by indexing this content better. Improving how we crawls dynamic content will ultimately enhance the search experience for our users.”
Yahoo also expects to deliver improved capabilities for SWF applications in an update to Yahoo Search. “Yahoo is committed to supporting Webmaster needs with plans to support searchable SWF and is working with Adobe to find out the best possible implementation,” said Sean Suchter, vice president of Yahoo search technology engineering.
SWF is a file format Web developers employ to develop rich applications and interactive content using Adobe Flash Player. Flash Player, according to Adobe, is installed on more than 98 percent of computers connected to the Internet.
The SWF specification is in its ninth reiteration, and has been openly available for consideration for some time, but until this version, was not completely utilized by many due to licensing fees. Now, however, as a part of the Open Screen Project, SWF is more openly available, which allows Google to officially roll out a capability it has had for years.
When a search spider hits an SWF Flash file, the special Flash Player will start up. This Flash Player will navigate every state of Flash files like a virtual user would, finding and helping the search engines index text and links along the way and searching through otherwise unlinked files that the Flash file points to.
Adobe is always searching for ways to improve the specialized Flash Player’s capabilities going forward, but is skimpy on the details. Indexing metadata is one possibility. For now, Google would not be able to search Flash files that are launched via some forms of JavaScript, will index external files launched by the Flash file separately from the Flash content, and would not be able to index Flash content in certain languages like Hebrew and Arabic.
“If you are a Web developer, now you do not have to choose between Flash and having content searched on search engines,” Justin Everett-Church, Adobe’s senior product manager for Flash Player, said in an interview.
In addition, a Web developer would not have to make any special modifications to pre-existing content to enable it to be index, since Google will automatically index content. Hence, if there is textual material that site managers do not want Google to index, it should be either removed or replaced with a graphical representation.
This new partnership will expand search results from just the static text and links within an SWF file to include RIAs and dynamic Web content, areas that have been tricky for search engines to fully index due to their constantly changing states based on user interaction, time and any number of other factors. It is a problem faced by many of the various RIA technologies.
Web users who frequent Google and Yahoo for their Internet searches will see a greater number of search results that will include Flash content, giving them a lot more options. Users will never know that it is Flash driving them toward the new search results, said Everett-Church.
“It is not going to slow down anything for the end user. It will take longer for Google to index the Web because there is a lot more content out there now than there were a couple of days ago,” he added.
Adobe has talked to different groups inside Microsoft to use the version of Flash Player with that company’s struggling Live Search service. No agreement has been reached, and negotiations are no longer active, Adobe said.