8 replies to this topic

[rohgan03]

Hi,
I need to get some interactive content developed ( user can click , drag and drop etc) . Right now the choice seems to be flash. Can google index flash?

What formats can google index? What format do you think will be the next supported one, so i can perhaps get it developed in that. Suggestions/ideas are welcome.

[OldWelshGuy]

Google fact & fiction:

Fiction: Sites are not included in Google's index if they use ASP (or some other non-html file-type.)

Fact: At Google, we are able to index most types of pages and files with very few exceptions. File types we are able to index include: pdf, asp, jsp, hdml, shtml, xml, cfm, doc, xls, ppt, rtf, wks, lwp, wri.


original information on the google website here http://www.google.co...ters/facts.html

[rohgan03]

Wow I havent even heard of half of those format. Whats the best for interactive demos ? I am spending a lot on this so something like pdf that others can really edit that easily will be prefereable.

[Hank Cowdog]

Unfortunately, I didn't see 'swf' (aka Shockwave Flash files) in that list.

I had heard that Google was to add limited flash parsing quite a while ago. Haven't seen it yet, though.

I helped develop code to do that for a product I work on, but in my case it was simply link extraction - not keyword analysis, etc. in addition.

I recognized a lot of these:

pdf, - portable data format (Adobe Acrobat)
asp - Microsoft Active Server Pages
jsp, - Java Server Page
hdml, - Handheld Markup Language - Unwired Planet (had to look this one up )
shtml, - HTML with SSI
xml, - eXtensible Markup Language
cfm, - Cold Fusion
doc, - MS Word Document
xls, - MS Excel Document
ppt, - MS PowerPoint Presentation
rtf, - Rich Text Format (MS Word compatibility format)
wks, - Lotus 1,2,3 Worksheet
lwp, - Lotus WordPro (had to look this one up, too)
wri. - Microsoft Write

[OldWelshGuy]

If you absolutely must use flash on a website, then use it as an element in the design, not as a standalone page.

You can then either optimise around the flash movie with text. e.g. on an 800x600 screen you could make the movie fill 2/3 of the screen, make the background of the screen the same colour as the movie background, and you wil have the best of both worlds, although the best of both very bad worlds it has to be said.

[powerofeyes]

Some more extensions I have seen google read,

PHP
PHP3
PHP4
ASPx - .NET
ASHX - Active Server Handler
ASCX - Active Server control
asmx

MSPX - .NET
EHTML - Enhanced HTML

[Gobo]

Google should index any extension, as long as the output is HTML... so if you have some homebrew extension that outputs HTML it will be indexed...

Problem is none of those formats are really interactive... you could have a <noscript> (or would it be noembed or noobject for flash?) version of it with all the data layed out in a non-interactive way...

The problem, as I understand it, with Flash is that the text in Flash isn't really an text in the same way that it is in other programs. It's apparently a vector graphic, so it's much more like an image.

[DJump2it]

I use php and Google indexes my sites just fine, although I have found problems now and again with variables in the url (dynamic content).

Probably well known, but It doesn't like java.

[Randy]

Welcome to the HR Forums DJump2it !