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Adobe Makes Flash Crawlable
nickull wrote in his journal that "Today Adobe systems made an announcement that it has provided technology and information to Google and Yahoo! to help the two search engine rivals index Shockwave Flash (SWF) file formats. According to the company, this will provide more relevant search rankings of the millions pieces of Flash content. Until now, developers had to implement workarounds for exposing text content used in Flash to search-engine spiders and other bots such as using XHTML data providers. While the Flash content is exposed, it is not yet clear how it will be utilized by the search engines, as they have not revealed their algorithms. The SWF specification is openly published."
Amazing what a little competition will bring...
...now I can search directly for those great flash games I use to pass the time at work! What'll they think of next?
Crackin' Wise - Blogging about whatever we want
...Flash always crawls. That's life on dialup.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Instead of (or in addition to) giving search engines information on Flash, Adobe should tell Flash users when not to use it. Avoid putting large texts in a Flash application and not offering the same in HTML. This is pretty obvious to everyone with half a brain, but "web developers" often seem to "forget".
What for ? You cannot navigate directly to a specific part/page in the Flash anyway.
I'd prefer search results not to be poluted by content that doesnt come up directly...
Now we'll get black hat SEOs keyword stuffing flash files and adding flash widgets all over the place. /me never enabled flashblock before, but he might soon.
I'd be much happier if the search engines quit linking to flash-only websites completely. Then maybe those horrible things would go away.
I can't think of any case where I've seen a Flash-only site where Flash added anything of substance (cuteness doesn't count), and they tend to be hard and non-standard to navigate, break key bindings (like CTRL-T to open a new tab doesn't work if mouse is over Flash), etc.
Here is an example: A business association's website was redesigned in Flash. Instead of their staff page having a simple list of photos, names, job titles and phone numbers that you could search by hitting CTRL-F, the flash version just shows a photo of all of the staff members and you can only find the job titles and contact info by holding the mouse over the appropriate person's photo. So, if you want to find the contact info for the newsletter producer and you don't already know what he/she looks like, you have to move your mouse over each of 15 different photos until you find the right one. Stupid. There is just too much dumb stuff going on with Flash.
Hopefully it'll crawl under a rock and die.
We've had flash decompilers for years to extract (text and graphic) content, I think this is just Adobe giving them format permission.
But most flash components cannot be linked to directly so what exactly is the search engine going to point to? The parent page? A visitor may never find the relevant sub-page and abandon browsing the site.
it took adobe longer than i thought it would do do this, as this was one of the core functionalities of MS Silverlight.
portfolio
...matter of fact, it makes my Flash crawl!
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Now all they have to do is make it so, when you make a web site in Flash, you can link directly to the "page" you want. And make the Flash plugin fast. And make it not crash so often. Oh and then, finally, come up with a real reason as to why we should use Flash instead of something else.
Once they do that, it'll be a great little format.
The fact that search engines couldn't index Flash was a strong argument against its use for textual content. With that excuse gone, more webmasters might consider using it.
Only problem is, Flash for textual content is HORRIBLE. Totally ruins the consistent experience I want with my web browser. Flash text does not behave like HTML text in several ways.
I really hope this doesn't encourage more Flash content from point-n-drool webmasters ...
For a start, "crawlable" does not mean it WILL be crawled. More likely, most flash will contain nothing but junk and internals that were never meant to be seen anyway. I wonder when the first "we recovered a password that was stored inside a flash file" / "we googled for vulnerable flash apps and found these" hits will come about. And, as someone's already pointed out, if you *can* extract the text from them, you can't do much useful with it besides say "it's in this Flash somewhere". You can't even do "find in page" once you've clicked on such a link. And if it's at the end of an hour-long Flash animation, you're not going to sit through it.
Then you'll have some people who have actually used bitmaps instead of text inside the Flash for various reasons, etc. The only useful thing to come out of this may well be a "View as HTML" version of Flash-only pages. But they will still be second-class pages because the designer didn't want to do it theirselves.
Given that people who use Flash aren't exactly the most popular people in the world (e.g. if you want it to appear in Google, be read by people, to be bookmarked, to be quoted/cited/linked etc.), this won't affect much - Finding content in a Flash file is like looking for a needle in a haystack. That's the problem solved by this announcement. However, finding *useful* content in that file is going to be even worse, and actually getting users TO that data will be almost impossible.
I imagine that the same thing will happen as it did with images, PDF's, etc. Those who design their Flash well will get something indexed and it'll actually get a hit or two from "View HTML Version" on Google. Those who don't (i.e. 99% of the people who make them) won't see any difference at all.
Thinking about classic "flat & linear" Flash movies this makes sense. But Flash is used as an application platform more and more (think of Flex).
Somebody please explain how Google is going to link into complex applications in a meaningful way.
Maybe they should introduce a standard interface that Flash apps could expose that allows Google to get content from the app together with startup arguments that would put the app into a meaningful state. Otherwise the Google result link would just start the app without any further indication where the content is.
Is there such an interface? Or may be this belongs into sitemap.xml...
What I do for a living: Build a GPS mobile game
Why would I want search engines crawling through my thumb-drive?
OK, before you mod me troll, that was a joke.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Hasn't Google already indexed and crawled .SWF files? How would releasing the SWF specification make things any different than before, when there were other widely available free SWF parsing libraries?
If these things could get cleared up, I wouldn't mind seeing a Flash Web... where Flash isn't a box in the center of an HTML page, but the basic protocol itself (like what Curl claims to be).
Of course given the cludginess of most Flash apps, maybe I'm just being a masochist here!
I think it's because "Flahs" is simply not worthy.
mov ax,4c00h
int 21h
... who read the title as "Adobe Makes Flesh Crawl"? My first thought was, yeah, so what else is new?
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
Pretty sad, is it not? Your words were my exact thoughts. But it shows nicely what happens when a virtual monopoly occurs in the industry.
You guys think it's great until advertisers start making their crappy "You've won a free ipod" flash ads searchable.
No portion of this post may be rebroadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball.
Adobe Makes FLESH Crawlable
My first thought was yes, it sometimes does make my flesh crawl, but why is this a headline here it isn't, um, let's not name the site.
Then I realized my mistake and thought well, that's nice but just not as interesting...
Animated Ads always make my flash crawl!
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
What will be essential for a flash-web is an off button that lets me turn off any flashy repeating flickering and flashing adverts or other pieces of flashing content on a page.
I am not a small kitten that wants to look at the bright flashy thing. if I'm at your website, I'm likely looking for information, so stop flashing at me.
there is a good reason amazon and google don't have flashing animations anywhere.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Flash doesn't suck, it's a great tool when properly used. The thing is that HTML was so hard to learn for the common "web designer" that they've used Flash to solve all their needs. Even Adobe doesn't use Flash for the entire site, they never did, including Maromedia. It's great for videos and when you need some rich media experience INDISE a web site, but making a WHOLE site using Flash is like using glass to build an entire house, including the pipes.
Back to the point, I guess there's nothing wrong to index flash content meanwhile they refer to those little spaces with media inside HTML web sites. I'd hate this to rocket the entire-Flash sites industry.
While Flash/ActionScript sucks it doesn't suck nearly as much as trying to write rich user interfaces in the abominable JS and HTML, and at least there is some attempt at object orientation and you can get similar behavior across browsers and operating systems. But yeah Flash still sucks big fat rhino cock, as anyone who has ever tried to use a/v other than the built in codecs will tell you, and open-source support for flash is non-existent. This is good news however if it inspires Java content to do the same thing. Maybe then we can write rich web interfaces in a language that doesn't blow goats and HTML, JS, and Flash can all receive the horrible death that they have deserved for so long.
So only Google & Yahoo were "provided technology and information" - Microsoft must be feeling left out.. lucky for adobe they dont live in sweden I suppose.
I wonder why adobe didn't invite msft/live.com to the party? Sour grapes over silverlight perhaps?
This is good news. It seems everybody hates on Flash here. I am a fan BUT its like everything else, use in moderation!
Any of you who have dealt with real customers know that many of them like to see flash on their page and are willing to pay a premium for it!! It is our responsibility to let them know the proper pro's and con's.
Lets face it, there is some very innovative things being done with the player today. Personally, like many things on the web, this excites me.
This would be great if it can be implemented directly into web browsers. For example, a Firefox plugin that allows me to specify "view text only" for Flash content.
Or is this "proprietary" information that will only be given to Google and Yahoo and not shared with the us commoners?
I don't know what brain damage causes people to think that they should present text a half a dozen words at a time in a slideshow, but it would be great if my browser would default to showing me all the text from a flash slideshow and then let me choose if I really want to see it pieced out a few words at a time.
...from the /. crowd. Would it cost you all your geek cred to admit that Flash is a useful web technology whose shortcomings are more the fault of how it's used than anything inherently wrong about it?
Seriously, flash was there long before everyone started going on about web 2.0, and the geeks still crapped on it. It was there when no one else could come up with a universally workable video delivery solution, and the geeks crapped on it. It was there with a useable vector graphic solution long before every geek's favorite non-starter, the SVG. Now Adobe has overcome one of the most serious shortcomings of the format and all you guys can do is crap on it some more. They fully intend to meld it with the PDF to give you guys the multimedia rich e-books of the future you've all dreamed about, and I expect you will all still keep crapping on it.
Meanwhile, the best web design technology the purists have managed to offer up since HTML is CSS...an almost unusable and completely unpredictable triumph of geekeneering over the less tech savvy minions (that is, those unwashed masses often sneered at by programmers, but responsible for 90% of what geeks like to call "content")
When Flash sucks, it's not because it doesn't work...it's because some yo-yo doesn't know the first thing about designing a decent GUI, or wants to pelt you with ads, or thinks his obnoxious public-domain techno music sounds awesome at 80 decibels. In this sense, Flash developers are no different from other web developers...they just have more power to do ill.
Since empowering the common man with technology is the crux of the geek manifesto, I would think you would all be raving about Flash. I don't think it's Flash you guys hate at all. I think you either hate Adobe (right there witya) or the idea that someone with a piece of software and an idea can create multimedia just as impressive as some geek with years of experience in the arcane art of programming. In which case...welcome to the future you built.
HTML, etc. is a jumble. But it's an Open jumble.
Nuff said.
Lack of indexing may have been one of the only things holding back the total Flashification of the Web.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
considering 90% of the flash ive encountered is advertising or malicious, i struggle to see how this will become anything more than an "indexable checkmate." to microsoft.
Good people go to bed earlier.
For a minute there, I thought "crawlable" referred the speed with which adobe products run in my browser, because they've already achieved that milestone.
Delivering software simulations for educational purposes is done pretty much 100% in Flash. Used well, Flash is not as bad as your typical slashdotter thinks. I get the complaints against it, but sometimes I feel those non-creative types on here just don't get the usefulness of the tool. What's next? Photoshop is a steamy pile of crap because it isn't open source and has no competition?
As a web designer myself, I'm curious to see where the hostility to Flash really comes from. I personally almost never see normal e-commerce or information being delivered through anything more dynamic than AJAX. Flash content is limited almost EXCLUSIVELY for the portfolio sites of individual artists, photographers, and design firms, where it is necessary as a showcase; or for specific marketing campaigns especially for movies, though these sites are much more comparable to flash games than a normal website. I can not remember the last time I browsed to a site, expecting something useful, to be held up by flash gimmickery. Where are all these horror stories coming from? Or is it just some inherent coder distaste for fancy visuals?
i wanted that information too, so i can index swf files in my spare time. i'm serious 8|
but they only gave it to google and some yahoo? dang
Is that for dynamic text read in from XML and other data sources or just for embedded text. If it is only embedded text, this is nothing new.
...that web sites should be flash.
Stood for Fast-Loading, Accessible, Searchable Hypertext though.
(Hmm, suddenly, it's only half the joke it used to be!)
Flash is for sites that value style more than substance. Unless there are flocks of people looking specifically for sites that have little animated doohickies and noise, and couldn't care less about actual content, Google would be wise just to skip flash sites.
Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
We'll be saying "Remember the old days ,back when the web was in a readable non-proprietary format"
Do not use flash. Do not have flash installed.
Oil is a "Proprietary Solution". So is how most of us get electricity and water. Most things in "modern life" are a "Proprietary Solution".
Who cares. Flash is a much easier way to do things. Most "Alpha Geeks" don't "get" Flash so they "diss" it all the time. As an Artist and Designer I think this will help designers provide solutions that only developers can provide now. I can now make SEO sites just like you developers BUT I can make them look like "something" and not like a Frontpage "template". This IS a "game changer".
... Flash always crawls when inside nspluginviewer. And crashes too!
(According to the guy maintaining nspluginviewer, this is because Flash on Linux doesn't do what it should to initialise itself or something like that)
When did this happen?
Seriously, I'm looking at the spec, and at a first glance, I don't see any kind of clause that I thought was there before -- the clause which says that this spec may not be used to implement a player.
If it really is entirely open, that's great news for Gnash and friends!
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I've been a Flash Developer for well over 8+ years starting from Flash 4. When I started I was thinking "This can't really be used for anything useful" so I would only embed it inside other apps or call JavasScript for complex things if its in HTML. Now the times have changed and Flash can do a lot of things however I still try to use the right tool for the job. In most cases now I develop the back-end of a website using PHP and a AJAX tool-kit and the front end in Flash.
A lot of movie sites still want things to be very shinny, flashing and fast moving. That's where Flash comes in however there are a lot of people that don't build those sites thinking about everyone. You can be a script kiddie and develop some stuff in Flash using the time-line. Long as it looks pretty.
I know people that try to use Flash for everything or when they build a flash website leave a lot of things out. For example Accessibility, I've added it into projects before. The thing is you can't get every Flash Developer to do that. I do use stander-fonts over bitmap fonts and make my text selectable. However not everyone is going to do that. Now everyone think about tabbing or not locking the keys to the Flash movie.
Now I'm developing stuff in AS3 and I've talked to a buddy that hates AS3 because it's more locked down and faster. Programming in AS3 is more like programming in C# or Java. I would know because I've also developed Apps in those too. However you can't get everyone to move away from AS2 and shitty standers. However I've seen good code by good developers. For example when I worked for EA. There interface is written in AS2 using there own Flash Plugin. It's not the good Flash Developers that's giving flash a bad name, it's the shity ones. I'm sure the same thing could be said for back in the day VB6 right?
From Zero to Hero... Starbuck Zero
Hopefully developers will also be able to protect any content they wish within a Flash application. One example is some kind of a Flash-based training application where different choices and the solution might be embedded in the application (instead of pulling it from a server one at a time).
yea but when will they get decent full screen video performance out on linux? I've tried 5 different machines, different video cards and drivers...none of them can put out a decent full screen gootube frame rate.
-G
That's one small step for Adobe, but one giant leap for the march of videocy.
Ah well. The internet was kind of cool for a while.
"Troll"? I didn't see any inflammatory language there. Just an opinion, simply stated.
It's scary being a Flash and Flex developer on Slashdot. You guys are unnaturally rabid.
http://mediawombat.com/ has been indexing and providing searchable flash content for a long time now. They even show you the actionscript source code.
search engines sucking up valuable bandwidth in order to support closed encoding schemes...
So where is a good open source flash decompiler that takes a .SWF and turns it into something you can examine?
They don't do it because they're not paid to do it. They're paid to make the website look and work the way the client wants. If the client also wants it to be nicely search-able... well that's SEO, an additional service they're happy to provide for a small fee.
This is not a knock on web designers, I work with them and (at least in this studio) they give the clients far more than they deserve as it is. If a client's cool and doesn't waste their time with ridiculous requests "Make it pinker", etc - the people here will make sure it it's more search-able, QA it on every browser and platform, pour over the design to make it even better - you name it. But all that extra service isn't promised up front so they have some wiggle room with time-wasting or after-the-fact penny pinchers.
If only they could make it readable. I see sites with text so damned small you'd need a freaking microscope to read it.
I would have to say I'm less than excited about the idea of having flash content search engine indexable. That's not to say that I'm against flash. I love it. I use it in elements on pages all the time, and the idea of indexing is obviously a good idea in itself, but the problem is that with the rise of a new technology comes millions of bottom feeding SOBs just dieing to manipulate it for personal gain and make the internet an altogether less pleasant experience. From the Adobe SWF spec document it seems the only way they'll be indexed is by using title and keyword attributes, which used to be all the rage in web pages but were inherrantly inaccurate because people could write whatever they want in there without it matching the content. And with the millions of bottom feeders out there whose sole purpose is to lure us to useless unrelated pages or link farms to drive up their CPM's, I think the one thing that could make the situation worse is if those same pages could be all flash.
When Web sites had "best viewed with IE4" banners, and screw anybody who had a Non-Approved (tm) browsing apparatus! That's what the Web is all about!
As a Flash Developer I think it's about time I provided some balance to all you Flash haters!
You people need to start looking beyond the end of your nose. Not all the web is for anoraks who simply want to scroll through reams and reams of reference material. Yes there are a lot of poorly designed, unintuitive Flash sites out there, but then there are also plenty of people who make html pages with bright green text on a black background!
What about companies that want to showcase their products (new cars for instance), what about brands that want to further an ad campaign, what about the possibility of efficient, user friendly web apps that don't look like they were built in the 1990's? Isn't it right that content for these people should be crawlable - or are you such snobs that you think the net should be a series of Wikipedias?
My point is this, with Flash - and more importantly Flex, it would be possible to have a web experience above and beyond what is even available on desktop apps - just download the Adobe Media player if you don't believe me.
And think of how efficient and easy to use something like eBay, or Facebook, or ecommerce sites could be if they were built using Flex.