Google is crawling Flash

Flash and similar techniques have always been a problem when it comes to search engine optimization, since the bots don’t know how to index the binary files. Google recently announced that their search algorithm has been expanded to use Adobe’s searchable library, enabling a crude form of Flash indexing.

Google’s search algorithm is a more well-kept secret than the recipe for Coca-Cola, but there are a few technical notes available on the subject.

However, don’t see this as a sign from above that creating full sites in Flash is a generally good idea. There are still a lot of issues that can happen if Flash is used in a bad way. For instance, sites can very easily become totally inaccessible. JavaScript-dependent Flash techniques such as SWFObject cannot be indexed. There is no semantic difference in Flash content.

But I’m happy that things are moving in the right direction.