Flash SEO & Developers

Posted At : July 9, 2008 4:52 AM | Posted By : Jeff
Related Categories: Google,Adobe,Flash,Yahoo

Ever since Adobe has made its recent announcement about the improved ability to index Flash I have had a question. Where is the SDK for developers? Late last year when Google announced that they were using the Adobe Search SDK to begin to index flash files it was great because it was an SDK that developers could download.

What is the benefit of this you may ask? If Adobe was to release a new SDK based on the new tech that they are providing to Google & Yahoo developers could use this to build a Flash file that would be indexed properly. If they expect developers to simply hope that their file would be indexed properly they are mistaken. Files need to be built to optimize it for SEO, much in the same way that we optimize html files for SEO.

If the search engines were able to index most of the current flash sites, us as developers have no idea what will show up in Google? Do we have to wait for the file to be indexed before we can fix issues? How do we test it locally before deployment? The older flash SDK at least allowed you test and see what would be indexed from the file.

Adobe, we need a new SDK based on this "headless" flash player.

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One of the problems of such an SDK, at least in the context in which you would like to use it, is that the technology is not 100% Adobe's. Adobe has basically provided the runner - the player - while Google and Yahoo! provide their own logic and methodologies for executing it and extracting information from SWFs. Its really those companies which could probably tell you the best way to structure your SWFs for SEO. And those implementations are bound to be different.

# Posted By senocular | 7/9/08 5:44 AM

Yes, but there should still be an Adobe SDK that gives me the ability to see the inside of my Flash in the same manner that Google/Yahoo see it. There has to be some way to test Flash for SEO before it is put on the web.

# Posted By admin | 7/9/08 5:47 AM

You're using the term "SDK" to mean "I want to see what Google sees"... am I getting that correct?

If so, then the headless Player is only one aspect of what Google eventually chooses to see, and their data-retrieval choices (external XML, eg) and ranking mechanisms are beyond the scope of Adobe's contribution.

I still have zero idea how this ability to traverse application state will change that first page of search results which Google returns. But as the FAQ says, you shouldn't need to do anything extra... I'm betting that Google's existing advice on good metadata, good inbound anchor text still play the biggest role.

If you wish to go beyond this, then I suspect that asking Google for specific advice on what they value within the application state, adding to their Google Webmaster info, would be the fastest way to improved results.
http://www.google.com/webmasters/

jd/adobe

# Posted By John Dowdell | 7/9/08 6:38 AM

I see that the old SDK isn't available anymore on the Adobe site.

What I would like to see is Adobe release the player that they are giving out to Google/Yahoo... I want to see what results are being exactly returned to google so I can format my data better to be presented to Google.

"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."

And Yes, I do think that Google needs to add something to their Webmaster Info so that a user could get more information on how google is indexing a flash file and how a developer can improve those results that come into a flash file from XML.

Thanks for the reply.

# Posted By jeff | 7/9/08 9:37 AM

"What I would like to see is Adobe release the player that they are giving out to Google/Yahoo."

Understood, thanks. I picked up a little more info this morning, and learned that Adobe did some customization of the engines given to Google and Yahoo, so that there isn't yet a generic implementation. But the FAQ also says that a goal is to get this distributed more broadly too, so I suspect that feedback from the initial release will drive future releases.

I'm passing your link here to my partners though, so that they can read your need directly in the meantime.

tx, jd/adobe

# Posted By John Dowdell | 7/9/08 12:35 PM

Thank you very much John. I know that there has been a similar concern amongst the others that I work with. We have 60+ Flash developers, coders not designers, where I work and we are all extremely interested in anything that can help us improve the SEO for the accounts that we work on.

# Posted By jeff | 7/9/08 4:11 PM

Good point indeed because currently there's a lot of organisational mess in SWF indexing (headers / body / text-based design elements) and as much as can be told off the Google search results at this point, due to the mess involved, regular sites are prioritised.

So it's pretty safe to say that until Adobe and search giants haven't worked it out, one can be advised to get a custom solution for the indexing, a Content Management System that is SEO-friendly, e.g.

# Posted By Ain | 9/10/08 4:07 PM

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