Google ups Flash capabilities

Advances in Google's Adobe Flash search indexing could lead to changes in companies' search engine optimisation strategies.

Commenting on the Google Webmaster Central blog, software engineers explain that all of the text users can see as they interact with Flash can now be better indexed by Google.

They add that words which appear in Flash files can also be used to match Google search queries, helping web users find more of the information they are searching for.

Furthermore, the search engine is discovering URLs which appear in Flash files, with the engineers suggesting that if a company's Flash application contains links to pages outside its website Google may now be able to find them and "crawl more of your website".

The experts also note that firms should be aware that Google will now be able to see the text which is visible to website visitors, recommending that if companies want it to ignore their less relevant information such as "copyright" messages they could replace them with images.

It was reported earlier this year that Google Video has had a revamp, which aims to allow people to search and browse videos via the web.

The service's search capabilities were improved and a number of new browse and search-related features were added.