Comments on: Flash Gets Transparent: Google, Yahoo! Learn to Index Flash http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/5831 Independent Tech News and Product Reviews from former VP and head of CNET.com and Longtime Computer Shopper Columnist, Alice Hill author of the popular "Hard Edge" column. Originally named AliceandBill.com. Tue, 02 Dec 2008 04:53:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 by: LZW http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/5831#comment-932951 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:04:43 +0000 http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/5831#comment-932951 I don't get it... Exactly what are they planning to do to FLASH! to make it more searchable and how can what they do to new FLASH! files make old FLASH! files more searchable without alteration??? I think what the real problem is, that FLASH! is a binary file and neither Yahoo nor Google have ever made it easy to find files online. Sure, there are tricks to finding files instead of web pages but Google/Yahoo have never offered any specific help in that area. It seems like the way Adobe could help search engines would be make the FLASH! files have a plain text header before the binary data so FLASH! authors could put in a meaningful description (like ID3 for MP3 files) and then the search bots could index that. Right now, if you want to find some FLASH! content, like say you wanted to play a game of Asteroids in your web browser but you didn't want to browse through a whole games site to find it, then you would probably search for the file name Asteroids.SWF. Testing that in google right now, the first hit is a web page but the second hit is the actual file. Yet it finds more web pages then SWF files so if Adobe would help Google & Yahoo fix that problem, people could find any type of file, not just FLASH! I don’t get it… Exactly what are they planning to do to FLASH! to make it more searchable and how can what they do to new FLASH! files make old FLASH! files more searchable without alteration???

I think what the real problem is, that FLASH! is a binary file and neither Yahoo nor Google have ever made it easy to find files online. Sure, there are tricks to finding files instead of web pages but Google/Yahoo have never offered any specific help in that area.

It seems like the way Adobe could help search engines would be make the FLASH! files have a plain text header before the binary data so FLASH! authors could put in a meaningful description (like ID3 for MP3 files) and then the search bots could index that.

Right now, if you want to find some FLASH! content, like say you wanted to play a game of Asteroids in your web browser but you didn’t want to browse through a whole games site to find it, then you would probably search for the file name Asteroids.SWF.

Testing that in google right now, the first hit is a web page but the second hit is the actual file. Yet it finds more web pages then SWF files so if Adobe would help Google & Yahoo fix that problem, people could find any type of file, not just FLASH!

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