A sigh of relief is going over flash web designers and developers as Adobe team up with Google and Yahoo to help Flash sites get found by their search engines. The idea behind this is to enhance the readability of Flash sites by major search engines, resulting in potentially higher ranking by Google and Yahoo. By implementing algorithms and updating existing ones, crawlers will be able to effectively search through your Flash site and generate an accurate illustration of the theme and content of your site. As yet there is no published complete date, but Google has already started amalgamation between its services and Adobe Flash Player technology.

Naturally, one of the many supporters of this integration is David Wadhwani, General Manager and Vice President of the Platform Business Unit at Adobe, who believes that the initiative will “significantly improve search of this rich content on the web”. Some have even go so far as to call the innovation the “Holy Grail”, as posted by fellow supporter Richard MacManus on Read Write Web.

Is it all good news?

Debates have begun concerning the possible limitations put on smaller search engines as a result of the two major search engines joining forces. Claims have arisen that the smaller search engines, such as Ask, Msn, etc, will be pushed further out of the market, creating an oligopoly consisting of Yahoo and Google.

However, having analysed debates made for and against this move, it would appear that the majority of arguments on both sides are made based on individual opinion and comfort with the use of flash software. Basically, it appears to depend on whether you like Flash.

Amending existing websites

This new development has caused some concerns regarding existing websites, as the unknowledgeable believe that amendments are required to allow their websites to be seen by crawlers. However, it is said that there is no requirement to amend existing web sites to allow crawlers to view your site, but I think its safe to say that a lot of Flash web sites have poor optimisation, especially within dynamic content. If you are a true SEO designer, it is worth reviewing and updating your Flash sites just so that you can maximise the benefits of these algorithms for your site.

Article original published: 6th October 2008