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Can Google index Flash?

Experiment done by Google: Will Googlebot be able to track links in existing Flash files without changing the file itself? The experiment had four goals:
•    Can Google track Flash links?
•    Can Google track Flash links if they only exist in hidden layers?
•    Will the new algorithm comply with relatively old Flash versions?
•    What would be the most ‘search engine friendly’ way of putting links in Flash?
To reach these goals, a text link and two Flash files were integrated in an existing domain (page rank 5). Both Flash files contained a ‘normal’ link and a hidden layer link.They each got a unique id, to check whether Googlebot could actually track these links.
The two Flash files were integrated in a different way in order to scan the differences between older and present Flash versions. The first Flash file received an <object> and <embed> attribute on site. The second Flash was placed according to the standard FlashSWFObject method.

Results
The results (source: Search Engine War blog) are clear:
•    Text link crawled: (Googlebot IP: 66.249.73.27, Time: 16.18)
•    Standard embed Flash link crawled: (Googlebot IP: 66.249.73.27, Time: 17.29)
•    Standard embed hidden Flash link crawled: (Googlebot IP: 66.249.73.27, Time: 17.29)
•    SWFObject Flash link crawled: (Googlebot IP: 66.249.73.27, Time: 18.28)
•    SWFObject hidden Flash link crawled: (Googlebot IP: 66.249.73.27, Time: 18.28)

Conclusion
Googlebot can track links in Flash files! Although Search Engine War gives a warning: This development has consequences. It could possibly lead to ‘Flash bombing’, which is a sort of spam that hides hundreds of links in Flash files. These links could become invisible for web site users. Search engine crawlers would however track and index them.

Written on February 27th, 2009 at 10:51 in Blog, Creative

Written by

Christophe

Tags:
Flash, google, Googlebot, index, search engine wars, SWFObject

10 Comments ›

Comments

[...] > Nascom › Can Google index Flash? [...]

Written on March 3rd, 2009 at 22:02

Written by

localToGlobal »...

That’s fantastic news actually, but what i’m asking myself: they say they can spider all the text in the swf. But when you load the text from, let’s say an XML file, they see that link to the xml file as a seperate link and index the xml as a seperate “site”. What about the text in the dynamic textfields, filled in by the text from the xml?
do they only index static textfields or also dynamic textfields?

Written on March 18th, 2009 at 11:35

Written by

Mario van den eynde

Mario: how the indexing works is explained in the Flash Player Internals presentation, of which you can find the video at http://www.peterelst.com/blog/2009/03/10/flash-player-internals/ . The video covers a whole lot more than just that, but is overall very interesting.

Written on March 18th, 2009 at 14:18

Written by

Sounds interesting. How long do you think it will take Google to realise that people can embed thousands of links in the flash file and get them all indexed? How would you stop something like that from happening? I cant wait for flash to become sorted for SEo purposes, then we can take web design and development to the next level.

Written on March 19th, 2009 at 17:49

Written by

@Mario van den eynde
Dynamic content is a problem. Google will index the xml file but the relation between the xml file and the swf will not be present. But, I worked out a simple solution how to use an xml for the flash content and get your website search friendly. It’s a combination of a few technologies. Today I will put the test files live, I have a strategy for SEO and I’m going to monitor it for a few weeks. So, over a few weeks you can read it here and the files can be downloaded.

Written on March 20th, 2009 at 13:17

Written by

Christophe Neys

Hi! Very interesting article! And I’m VERY curious to know how your test worked out! I’m working a lot with flash / swfaddress and I’m dying to know to how to set it up properly for SEO. Right now again I’m working on a Flash Website with SWFAddress and a dynamic XML for the content. Any tips would be AWESOME!!
Thanks so much,
John

Written on April 9th, 2009 at 20:41

Written by

@John
The first results are already published on my blog. You can find them at http://tips-search-optimization.blogspot.com/2009/04/dynamische-flash-optimaliseren-de.html.

It’s written in Dutch, maybe it’s a pity but don’t worry, everything will be posted here at the Nascom blog later on ;-).

Cheers

Written on April 12th, 2009 at 17:44

Written by

Thanks, Christophe! That’s convenient: I am Dutch! ;-) I’m reading through your blog as I speak! Very interesting material… It’s all quite new territory to me, so I’m absorbing!!
Thanks for coming back to me, btw!

John

Written on April 14th, 2009 at 20:35

Written by

[...] bot can track links in Flash files!”. You can read a more detailed conclusion on their blog. No one says it’s going to be a piece of cake, but this is definitely a busted [...]

Written on October 4th, 2009 at 23:17

Written by

Breaking the Myth: F...

I arrived at this site to know whether google can index the link to my site from a flash game i submit at some sites? I found that it can. But can it index the link even if it is hidden in a deeper layer in the game? I think it does.. Anyways, great information here.

Written on January 18th, 2010 at 9:27

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