Search giants Google and Yahoo have teamed up with Adobe in a move that will change web searches. By using an optimized version of Adobe’s Flash player, they’ll be able to include dynamic web content and rich Internet applications (RIAs) into search results, which have not previously been counted.
The optimized version of the Flash player will mean that a search engine can index the Flash format SWF file by putting it through the flash player, this showing content that hadn’t appeared to the search engines previously.
Justin Everett-Church, senior product manager for Adobe Flash Player, told TechNewsWorld:
"What we’ve done to make this work better is we’ve provided the Flash Player so a SWF file, which is our Flash content, will play back normally — just like an end-user — and then Yahoo and Google are providing the code that’s kind of like the virtual user that drives the application. It clicks on things and makes choices and just navigates around and through an application or a Web site. At every state, it gets back all the text and all the links that are available there."
Those using the search engines will notice no visual difference, but they will be presented with a much greater variety of results.