Adobe helps search engines find Flash content

Adobe is offering new Flash Player tools that can help with search engine indexing.

Adobe is working with internet search companies to help them improve results of searches on dynamic web content, such as that based on its Flash multimedia platform. The move is intended to unlock information contained within active content that is currently invisible to users searching the web.

Adobe said it is providing optimised Flash Player technology to search providers such as Google and Yahoo to enhance search engine indexing of content stored in its Flash file format (SWF). While search engines can already index static text and links inside these files, dynamic web content is currently difficult to expose to search engines because of its changing state, according to Adobe.

“Until now it has been extremely challenging to search dynamic content on the web, so we are leading the charge in improving search of content that runs in Adobe Flash Player,” said David Wadhwani, vice president of Adobe's Platform Business Unit.

The company said it is initially working with Google and Yahoo, but expects to broaden the availability to other content publishers and developers in future.

Google has already begun to incorporate the Flash Player technology into its search engine, according to Adobe, while Yahoo expects to deliver the improved web search capabilities in a future update to Yahoo Search.