Google Breaks SEO Rule Number 6
Google has finally capitulated and broken SEO rule number 6, or was it 5 – I cannot remember. Whichever rule number it was, it went something like:
Avoid using flash in your web design as the search engines cannot read their content.
Not anymore apparently. If you use Adobe flash files in your web design then Google will soon start reading these files as well. The last bastion of sensible web design is about to go out the door.
According to Google Webmaster Central Blog:
In addition to finding and indexing the textual content in Flash files, we’re also discovering URLs that appear in Flash files, and feeding them into our crawling pipeline—just like we do with URLs that appear in non-Flash webpages. For example, if your Flash application contains links to pages inside your website, Google may now be better able to discover and crawl more of your website.
If anyone has been hiding any blackhat activities inside flash files then look out, all will soon be revealed. There are sites that are comprised almost completely by flash files and I am sure these webmasters will be cheering this latest news.
Google is not able to index images inside flash files and the following limitations still apply:
There are three main limitations at present, and we are already working on resolving them:
1. Googlebot does not execute some types of JavaScript. So if your web page loads a Flash file via JavaScript, Google may not be aware of that Flash file, in which case it will not be indexed.
2. We currently do not attach content from external resources that are loaded by your Flash files. If your Flash file loads an HTML file, an XML file, another SWF file, etc., Google will separately index that resource, but it will not yet be considered to be part of the content in your Flash file.
3. While we are able to index Flash in almost all of the languages found on the web, currently there are difficulties with Flash content written in bidirectional languages. Until this is fixed, we will be unable to index Hebrew language or Arabic language content from Flash files.
It’s time to go and rewrite all the ‘how to design SEO compliant web page’ tips now.
Recent Entries
- Why A Search Engine Googopoly Is Bad For The Internet
- Blogging For The Sake Of Blogging Is Not Blogging
- How To Create An Effective Social Marketing Tweet
- Internal Linking – Don’t Be Afraid Of The Long Tail
- Adding Your Scotland Based Local Business To AOL
- Don’t Be Too Quick To Dismiss Google Buzz
- Are Guest Posts A Bad Link Building Strategy?
- Can You Overdo SEO?
- Review Sites And SEO For Scotland Local Businesses
- What Effect Will HTML5 Have On Web Design And SEO