One note, when I said "In other words, #anchors no longer work against Googlebot seeing text content in Flash."
That should be taken to mean Googlebot doesn't still ignore #anchors it finds in URLs not inside of a Flash file. On Oct 26, 7:24 pm, beussery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hey Bobby and thanks for pointing out this thread TheCosmonaut. > Thanks for checking out my post as well.... > > > It indexes both your HTML > > and Flash content, and makes a decision which content it will show to > > a certain visitor as a search result. > > As mentioned in my research, Google isn't attributing content in Flash > with the parent URL or as a single entity. This is still true as you > can see using Google's own example > query:http://www.google.com/search?q=nasa+deep+impact+animation&sourceid=na... > > In the results, noticewww.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/deep-impact/index-flash.html > doesn't include "alternative" content and > thatwww.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/deep-impact/index.swfis also indexed. > When swf files are indexed they are accessible to users with or > without Flash. Try the same query on your iPhone and you'll see what > I mean. When users without Flash click on swf files in search results > no progressive enhancement takes place and graceful degredation can't > happen. > > > if you only show a Flash video with no textual content Googlebot will > > probably index nothing, however if you provide descriptive alternative > > content will it show these results instead? > > Actually the opposite seems to be true in most cases I've seen. My > case study and Google's example is a Flash file at a parent URL > without descriptive alternative text content or any text content in > (X)HTML indexed in search results. In fact text content in Flash has > been associated with the (X)HTML file. > > >Also does the type of user > > agent that makes a search request influence the process? E.g. Google > > would ideally only like to show search results based on what someone > > with particular a user agent can see, so a text browser should render > > different results than Firefox with Flash installed, and in case of > > dynamic publishing with JavaScript enabled. > > I'm not sure how user-agent Googlebot would know what a user using > user-agent Firefox sees. I'd be careful here because returning > different pages based on user agent could be considered cloaking by > user agent. > > If Googlebot has JavaScript enabled and SWFObject works as designed, > I'm not sure how Googlebot would see text in (X)HTML. Can anyone > explain how this would happen? > > >But you can already see > > the complexity here, how does Google know that you have the required > > version of Flash Player installed or JavaScript enabled? And what > > about the difference between static and dynamic publishing? Brian > > Ussery gives some good new insight in how Google deals with web > > content today, however his first conclusion is certainly not that > > conclusive at all. There is a lot more research that needs to be done > > to describe Google's internal logic. > > There is lots of research to be done, that is for sure! I didn't go > into lots of detail because as you point out, things can change at any > moment but here is some of what is known today. > > Google is using Adobe's "Icabod" Flash player which like it's namesake > is headless. In other words, #anchors no longer work against > Googlebot seeing text content in Flash. > > Googlebot supports SWFObject and as a result may not currently see > alternative text content in underlying (X)HTML. Obviously the point > of SWFObject is to return Flash to users with Flash and user-agents > supporting JavaScript, like the "new" Googlebot. Bobby mentioned H1 > abuse (spam) by some Flash sites and I've seen a decline in Flash > rankings for sites using this technique to manipulate rankings. This > would also indicate Googlebot may no longer "see" H1s since SWFObject > support was introduced in July. > > As far as dynamic content via xml, Googlebot now sees text content in > "the Flash file" but, not dynamic content imported into the Flash file > from another source. My theory is that Icabod may not yet support > text content from another source. > > When it comes to meta data, links and other signals used by search > engines these can be optimized even in Flash by using simple steps > like avoiding "seamless transitions" in text rich sections of a site. > > I hope this helps shed light on my research and welcome any feedback > or questions... > > -Brian --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SWFObject" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/swfobject?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
