Google Can Now Index Flash Movies!
I received this in my monthly webmaster newsletter and found it very interesting.
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As you know, a Flash movie as the index page of a site has always been a major problem with search engine optimization. There's simply no content for the search engines to index.
So when I learned that Google can index the contents of Macromedia Flash movies, I was astonished. It seemed this remarkable discovery had gone virtually unnoticed in the SEO community. But as you probably know, Google has always been the first to index different types of content: PDF files, .doc files, etc. Google has also made amazing inroads in being able to index dynamic content.
And 'now' they're the first major search engine to index Flash ? another significant step forward in the SEO industry.
So why has Flash presented such problems in the past?
Background of Macromedia Flash Movies and SEO
With a Flash movie as the main page of a site, the Web site owner is giving up the crucial text necessary to prove to the search engines that the main page is about a particular topic. Without that text, the search engines have nothing to index. Therefore, the main page rarely does well in the rankings, unless off-page factors such as link popularity or link reputation are sufficient to carry the page on their own.
In the past, legitimate work arounds have been few and far between. This made things extremely difficult for businesses that wanted to create a rich user experience with a Flash home page, such as Web design firms, photography studios, graphic design firms, and so forth.
So, these businesses often sacrificed rankings for the user experience, since they could rarely have both while still following all of the guidelines set forth by the search engines.
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