wow i'd like to put this up on our intranet - can i get a link to credit you for this?
a On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 11:46 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Artur, > > I did some research this morning to unearth the latest best practices. > I'll share the results of my findings. > > I found some information that suggests that Google is capable of 1) > indexing Flash content embedded via SWFObject and 2) cataloging content > linked via URLs with hash marks. However, the majority view seems to be > that the best way to control what Google catalogs is to provide distinct > page links that do not use the hash mark. > > Google announced in mid 2008 that it could crawl Flash: "Now that we've > launched our Flash indexing algorithm, web designers can expect improved > visibility of their published Flash content, and you can expect to see > better search results and snippets" ("Google learns to crawl Flash," > http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/google-learns-to-crawl-flash.html, > June 30, 2008). That same day, Google asserted, "We've improved our ability > to index textual content in SWF files of all kinds. This includes Flash > "gadgets" such as buttons or menus, self-contained Flash websites, and > everything in between" ("Improved Flash indexing", > http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/06/improved-flash-indexing.html, > June 30, 2008). A year later, Google asserted in the blog post "Flash > indexing with external resource loading" ( > http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/06/flash-indexing-with-external-resource.html, > June 18, 2009) that they "just added external resource loading to our ! > Flash indexing capabilities," meaning that "when a SWF file loads content > from some other file—whether it's text, HTML, XML, another SWF, etc.—we can > index this external content too, and associate it with the parent SWF file > and any documents that embed it." > > Regarding Google's capacity to see links with hash marks as unique URLS, I > found an article in betanews from September 29, 2009 titled "Google vs. > Yahoo vs. Bing on 'deep linking:' Does it make any difference?" ( > http://www.betanews.com/article/Google-vs-Yahoo-vs-Bing-on-deep-linking-Does-it-make-any-difference/1254260245) > in which the author notes, "This week, all three of the world's top general > search engines touted the addition of deep links to their search results, > although Google has been actively experimenting with deep links since this > time last year. The basic premise is this: For Web pages that have named > anchors above selected subsections -- for example, <A NAME="Details"> -- the > search engine is capable of generating subheadings in its search results > that link users directly to those subsections, or at least to subsections > whose titles imply they may have some bearing upon the query." > > With all that noted, I find it telling that Adobe is still pushing for > basic URLs to page content rather than relying on Google to crawl hash marks > or SWF content directly. A little over a month ago, in the "Deep Links and > Dynamic Content" video which is part of the Adobe Developer Connection > article "Adobe Flash and search engine optimization (SEO): Techniques, > issues, and strategies" ( > http://www.adobe.com/devnet/seo/articles/flash_seo_videos.html, December > 14, 2009), Damien Bianchi specifically asserts that "Google does not index > anything past the hash mark in the deep linking URL" and recommends > providing basic URLs for spider consumption. > > Justin Everett-Church, senior product manager for designer/developer > relations for Flash at Adobe, clearly articulated why we can't rely on > Google's ability to crawl SWF content in an audio interview on December 9, > 2009. In this interview, Everett-Church noted, "Flash content or SWFs have > been actually accessible to search engines for a while. In previous kind of > incarnations, it's been able to decompile SWF and give all the strings out > there. Unfortunately, that's not really getting out what an end user sees, > what an end user experiences. So, we've had to come up with better solutions > that give a more full description of the text links that are going on inside > the SWF, how the end user actually is interacting with representing the > hierarchy of the SWF. Without that full solution that we've implemented in > the last couple of years, really, Flash search ability was less than it > should be, but that's obviously why we did the work." > > While there may come a day when we can structure our ActionScript code to > precisely control what Google sees, for the time-being the approach outlined > by Michael Wyszomierski and Greg Grothaus in an article titled "A Spider's > View of Web 2.0" ( > http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/11/spiders-view-of-web-20.html, > Tuesday, November 6, 2007) seems to offer the best hope for insuring Google > sees our sites the way our clients and visitors see our sites. > > Bottom line: provide plain links to HTML pages and redirect Flash-enabled > user agents that visit those pages to a link with a hash that will allow > leveraging swfaddress to deep-link to the proper Flash content. > > I intend to keep an eye on the Adobe Search Engine Optimization Technology > Center at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/seo/ to stay on top of what Adobe > recommends on this front. > > Thanks, > Raymond Simmons > Neon Sky Creative Media, Inc. > > ---- artur <[email protected]> wrote: > > was wondering if there are any bulletproof SEO solutions out there > > besides doing a mod re-write for crawlers. > > > > does google still penalize for this? > > > > thanks > > > > artur > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Flashcoders mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders > > > _______________________________________________ > Flashcoders mailing list > [email protected] > http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders > _______________________________________________ Flashcoders mailing list [email protected] http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
