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Google: Improved Flash indexing

Web Design July 5th, 2008

After receiving numerous requests Google  improves the indexing of Adobe Flash files.

Q: Which Flash files can Google better index now?
We’ve improved our ability to index textual content in SWF files of all kinds. This includes Flash “gadgets” such as buttons or menus, self-contained Flash websites, and everything in between.

Q: What content can Google better index from these Flash files?
All of the text that users can see as they interact with your Flash file. If your website contains Flash, the textual content in your Flash files can be used when Google generates a snippet for your website. Also, the words that appear in your Flash files can be used to match query terms in Google searches.

In addition to finding and indexing the textual content in Flash files, we’re also discovering URLs that appear in Flash files, and feeding them into our crawling pipeline—just like we do with URLs that appear in non-Flash webpages. For example, if your Flash application contains links to pages inside your website, Google may now be better able to discover and crawl more of your website.

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The 10 Commandments of Web Design

General News, Web Design June 30th, 2008

The Internet is constantly changing. BusinessWeek.com spoke to a bevy of experts and distilled the must-follow rules top online designers live by in 2008

Since the Internet emerged as a major force, altering everything from the way people work to the way they date, it has been a roller-coaster ride that made the world giddy. Microsoft ,   Netscape,  et al. fought the browser wars, Web standards were championed, and the Web became community-minded and social, ushering in the reign of Facebook, Flickr, and You Tube. From boom to bust and back again, with staggering amounts of money changing hands at every point, the online industry rides on with no end in sight.

The Net has also attracted prophets, gurus, theorists, and evangelists of every stripe. Many of their promised game-changing technologies—Jini, DHTML, and countless others—never panned out, while seemingly simple innovations—metadata, XML, and CSS—have led to major breakthroughs. Meanwhile, Web design vogues from the effervescent jumble of HotWired to the stark utility of Google have continued to evolve and become more contradictory—and entrenched.

To try and make sense of it all, BusinessWeek.com canvassed a broad range of Internet luminaries to discover the design rules they live by right now. Contributors ranged from the guru of Web usability, Don Norman, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, to the design director of NYTimes.com, Khoi Vinh, and John Maeda, president-elect of the Rhode Island School of Design. These 10 commandments of Web design for 2008 are the combined results of our survey. For the full list of contributors, see the end of the story.

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