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Posted to dev@flex.apache.org by Ariel Jakobovits <ar...@yahoo.com> on 2012/02/26 08:54:40 UTC
SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
> what the search engine project was doing
Was that project trying to expose more information about the content in swfs to search engines for inclusion in search results?
Bouncing off of that, could we program a standard into our new flex compiler's swfs where search engines can expect to find information to help in indexing. For example, would knowing that a "3x5card" of useful information pertaining to SEO was located at byte 350 encourage search engines to reach there?
Ariel Jakobovits
ajakobov@adobe.com
650-350-0282
On Feb 25, 2012, at 12:00 PM, Nicholas Kwiatkowski <ni...@spoon.as> wrote:
> what the search engine project was doing
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
I think MXMLC is already doing that - all that stuff that goes into
metadata, that no one ever fills in - I think it's called XMP or something
like that. :)
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Jonathan Campos <jo...@gmail.com>.
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 3:55 PM, Michael A. Labriola <
labriola@digitalprimates.net> wrote:
> Wasn't arguing if you could.
Oh I know you weren't arguing. I wasn't saying you were wrong. Just
throwing in another opinion of how one person's results when working with
it. My solution though was also middle tier dependent. I've done some
experiments with extending components so that they write out information to
the wrapper for search engines and it worked, the problem was the overhead
added to the framework.
This would probably be best suite by an injected behavior.
--
Jonathan Campos
RE: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by "Michael A. Labriola" <la...@digitalprimates.net>.
>I've done many applications that are SEO compliant using Flex. In my blog I've even outlines a few ways to do this, however there was never something within the framework that fully supported this. I ended up having to make >a bunch of extra logic to make this work, but it was possible.
Wasn't arguing if you could. More that it always seemed to be Flex was the realm of apps and, in my experience with the ones I have worked on, didn't have the same requirements for SEO. Always seemed when this requirements was in play it was something straddling the border of what I think of as an application and a rich functional web site.
Mike
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Jonathan Campos <jo...@gmail.com>.
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 3:16 PM, Michael A. Labriola <
labriola@digitalprimates.net> wrote:
> This topic is extremely interesting. I have always told my clients that if
> you needed SEO with a Flex app, you were likely pondering the wrong
> technology. I have never seen Flex apps as something that should be indexed
> anymore than the buttons in Microsoft word.
>
> Mike
>
I've done many applications that are SEO compliant using Flex. In my blog
I've even outlines a few ways to do this, however there was never something
within the framework that fully supported this. I ended up having to make a
bunch of extra logic to make this work, but it was possible.
--
Jonathan Campos
RE: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by "Michael A. Labriola" <la...@digitalprimates.net>.
>I used to develop my "all flash" homepages in a way that I represented
>all the data structure I accessed as HTML pages.
>So I got all indexable content out with regular lists and content first.
>Then I started with the Flash Homepage and built it entirely on the
>content of the container homepage: Every Data "resource"
>that I took I pulled of the same underlying system including the html
>code. If I wanted a new "content" I had to add that service to the html
>page. Then I looked that the links worked: So If you browsed down to
>apage/acontent then it send the browser (with flash) to a the index
>page with that url in the background:
>mypage.com/#apage/acontent And the page used this as starting point.
>
>At the end of the day I had all index-able content available as HTML
>and all visible content in the Flash. I used same mechanisms parallel
>for ajax homepages and it worked out quite well.
>
>Do you think a discussion about a examples or a development model in
>this direction would be reasonable?
>
>yours
>Martin.
>
This topic is extremely interesting. I have always told my clients that if you needed SEO with a Flex app, you were likely pondering the wrong technology. I have never seen Flex apps as something that should be indexed anymore than the buttons in Microsoft word.
Mike
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Martin Heidegger <mh...@leichtgewicht.at>.
Compiler list? Developer mailing-list: anything Flex related :)
Anways: I think this discussion is important because a development model
on a XHTML data structure/provider could allow a Flash AND HTML
development model.
Just because websites are not made in Flash anymore doesn't mean rich
websites will never be made with Flex ;)
Regarding the beer invitation: I am living in Japan these days so it
might get tough. Thanks for the invitation though!
yours
Martin.
On 28/02/2012 05:32, Duane Nickull wrote:
> It is a very valuable discussion to have. I am just not sure if it
> belongs in the Compiler list.
>
> FWIW - I used XHTML data providers. Having the keyword in<title> for a
> better initial ranking.
>
> BTW - I will be in Vienna next week if you want to grab a beer to discuss?
>
> Duane
> ________________________________________
>
> Überity.com
> President& COO
> Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
> http://www.uberity.com
> Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
> Twitter | @Uberity @duanechaos
>
>
>
>
>
> On 12-02-27 11:46 AM, "Martin Heidegger"<mh...@leichtgewicht.at> wrote:
>
>> Hello Duane,
>>
>> I used to develop my "all flash" homepages in a way that I represented
>> all the data structure I accessed as HTML pages.
>> So I got all indexable content out with regular lists and content first.
>> Then I started with the Flash Homepage and built it
>> entirely on the content of the container homepage: Every Data "resource"
>> that I took I pulled of the same underlying system
>> including the html code. If I wanted a new "content" I had to add that
>> service to the html page. Then I looked that the links worked: So If you
>> browsed down to apage/acontent then it send the browser (with flash) to
>> a the index page with that url in the background:
>> mypage.com/#apage/acontent And the page used this as starting point.
>>
>> At the end of the day I had all index-able content available as HTML and
>> all visible content in the Flash. I used same mechanisms
>> parallel for ajax homepages and it worked out quite well.
>>
>> Do you think a discussion about a examples or a development model in
>> this direction would be reasonable?
>>
>> yours
>> Martin.
>>
>>
>> On 28/02/2012 04:20, Duane Nickull wrote:
>>> It used to. To understand how the system works, watch this video:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2009/01/flash-search-engine-optimization.
>>> ht
>>> ml
>>>
>>> And this video:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-evangelists-duane-nickull/seo-secrets-tec
>>> hn
>>> ology-and-magic-behind-flash/
>>>
>>>
>>> The second one is more important and it start around the 6 minute mark
>>> (not sure why Adobe never trimmed it).
>>>
>>> I honestly think that after watching these, you will all agree there is
>>> nothing that belongs on an SDK discussion list WRT SEO. It is simply
>>> not
>>> needed.
>>>
>>> Duane
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>>
>>> Überity.com
>>> President& COO
>>> Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
>>> http://www.uberity.com
>>> Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
>>> Twitter | @Uberity @duanechaos
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 12-02-27 10:57 AM, "Omar Gonzalez"<om...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 10:49 AM, Left Right<ol...@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ... and white
>>>>> text on white background with postion: absolute top -1000px has a
>>>>> better
>>>>> chance to affect the crawler than that thing does...
>>>>>
>>>> That also has a high chance of getting you blacklisted off of search
>>>> engines. I wouldn't recommend anyone to do this.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Omar Gonzalez
>>>> s9tpepper@apache.org
>>>> Apache Flex PPMC Member
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com>.
It is a very valuable discussion to have. I am just not sure if it
belongs in the Compiler list.
FWIW - I used XHTML data providers. Having the keyword in <title> for a
better initial ranking.
BTW - I will be in Vienna next week if you want to grab a beer to discuss?
Duane
________________________________________
Überity.com
President & COO
Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
http://www.uberity.com
Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
Twitter | @Uberity @duanechaos
On 12-02-27 11:46 AM, "Martin Heidegger" <mh...@leichtgewicht.at> wrote:
>Hello Duane,
>
>I used to develop my "all flash" homepages in a way that I represented
>all the data structure I accessed as HTML pages.
>So I got all indexable content out with regular lists and content first.
>Then I started with the Flash Homepage and built it
>entirely on the content of the container homepage: Every Data "resource"
>that I took I pulled of the same underlying system
>including the html code. If I wanted a new "content" I had to add that
>service to the html page. Then I looked that the links worked: So If you
>browsed down to apage/acontent then it send the browser (with flash) to
>a the index page with that url in the background:
>mypage.com/#apage/acontent And the page used this as starting point.
>
>At the end of the day I had all index-able content available as HTML and
>all visible content in the Flash. I used same mechanisms
>parallel for ajax homepages and it worked out quite well.
>
>Do you think a discussion about a examples or a development model in
>this direction would be reasonable?
>
>yours
>Martin.
>
>
>On 28/02/2012 04:20, Duane Nickull wrote:
>> It used to. To understand how the system works, watch this video:
>>
>>
>>http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2009/01/flash-search-engine-optimization.
>>ht
>> ml
>>
>> And this video:
>>
>>
>>http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-evangelists-duane-nickull/seo-secrets-tec
>>hn
>> ology-and-magic-behind-flash/
>>
>>
>> The second one is more important and it start around the 6 minute mark
>> (not sure why Adobe never trimmed it).
>>
>> I honestly think that after watching these, you will all agree there is
>> nothing that belongs on an SDK discussion list WRT SEO. It is simply
>>not
>> needed.
>>
>> Duane
>>
>> ________________________________________
>>
>> Überity.com
>> President& COO
>> Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
>> http://www.uberity.com
>> Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
>> Twitter | @Uberity @duanechaos
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 12-02-27 10:57 AM, "Omar Gonzalez"<om...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 10:49 AM, Left Right<ol...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ... and white
>>>> text on white background with postion: absolute top -1000px has a
>>>>better
>>>> chance to affect the crawler than that thing does...
>>>>
>>> That also has a high chance of getting you blacklisted off of search
>>> engines. I wouldn't recommend anyone to do this.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Omar Gonzalez
>>> s9tpepper@apache.org
>>> Apache Flex PPMC Member
>>
>>
>>
>
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Martin Heidegger <mh...@leichtgewicht.at>.
Hello Duane,
I used to develop my "all flash" homepages in a way that I represented
all the data structure I accessed as HTML pages.
So I got all indexable content out with regular lists and content first.
Then I started with the Flash Homepage and built it
entirely on the content of the container homepage: Every Data "resource"
that I took I pulled of the same underlying system
including the html code. If I wanted a new "content" I had to add that
service to the html page. Then I looked that the links worked: So If you
browsed down to apage/acontent then it send the browser (with flash) to
a the index page with that url in the background:
mypage.com/#apage/acontent And the page used this as starting point.
At the end of the day I had all index-able content available as HTML and
all visible content in the Flash. I used same mechanisms
parallel for ajax homepages and it worked out quite well.
Do you think a discussion about a examples or a development model in
this direction would be reasonable?
yours
Martin.
On 28/02/2012 04:20, Duane Nickull wrote:
> It used to. To understand how the system works, watch this video:
>
> http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2009/01/flash-search-engine-optimization.ht
> ml
>
> And this video:
>
> http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-evangelists-duane-nickull/seo-secrets-techn
> ology-and-magic-behind-flash/
>
>
> The second one is more important and it start around the 6 minute mark
> (not sure why Adobe never trimmed it).
>
> I honestly think that after watching these, you will all agree there is
> nothing that belongs on an SDK discussion list WRT SEO. It is simply not
> needed.
>
> Duane
>
> ________________________________________
>
> Überity.com
> President& COO
> Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
> http://www.uberity.com
> Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
> Twitter | @Uberity @duanechaos
>
>
>
>
>
> On 12-02-27 10:57 AM, "Omar Gonzalez"<om...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 10:49 AM, Left Right<ol...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> ... and white
>>> text on white background with postion: absolute top -1000px has a better
>>> chance to affect the crawler than that thing does...
>>>
>> That also has a high chance of getting you blacklisted off of search
>> engines. I wouldn't recommend anyone to do this.
>>
>> --
>> Omar Gonzalez
>> s9tpepper@apache.org
>> Apache Flex PPMC Member
>
>
>
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Jonathan Campos <jo...@gmail.com>.
This is basically the exact method I've used in the past with great
success.
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by David Francis Buhler <da...@gmail.com>.
I think this is an excellent idea.
The ANT Task could replace user-defined tokens inside both the HTML pages
and .AS/MXML files for copy.
BTW:The older Flash Ford Sync website (2009?) had an alternative HTML
version that displayed the same content as the Flash Version (complete with
images and menu options). The Flash version ranked very well on Google as a
result.
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 1:06 PM, jude <fl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> With both of the above solutions we could create or have a gui to create a
> sitemap.xml file that defines the fragments our apps listen for and the
> redirect links to get the raw content. We could also have the compiler or
> ant task support the creation of multiple HTML wrapper pages that are
> identical to the main wrapper page except in their name and / or the option
> of embedding the content into the page (if html) or if dynamic content it
> would point to a dynamic page.
>
>
>
> Example sitemap.xml
> <site>
> <page name="home" url="http://example.com/main/#home" rawcontent="
> http://example.com/main.php?page=home" html="http://example.com/home.html"
> />
> <page name="products" url="http://example.com/main/#products"
> rawcontent="
> http://example.com/main.php?page=products"
> html="http://example.com/products.html"/>
> </site>
>
> Site.xml ex 2
> <site>
> <page name="home" url="http://example.com/main/#home" ajax="
> http://example.com/main.php?p=10" />
> <page name="products" url="http://example.com/main/#p=10" ajax="
> http://example.com/main/main.php?p=10" />
> </site>
>
>
> If we supported something like this and just started using and uploading it
> in our projects it might remove the complexities for the search engines.
>
>
> [1]
>
> http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/proposal-for-making-ajax-crawlable.html
> [2]
>
> http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/proposal-for-making-ajax-crawlable.html?showComment=1256080765377#c3966241161139678970
> [3] http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/flexcapacitor
> [4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnrx30KahIc
> [5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmIz6Upc6dY
>
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com>.
Jude:
On 12-02-28 10:06 AM, "jude" <fl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Here is my comment [2].
>
>I think SEO search results come down to popularity. Is everyone linking to
>your page? It might have something to do with Google analytics. How long
>people stay on your page.
DN: Amen brother! That is correct.
>
>But as a content creator I think it's up to the search engine to find and
>index my site. I'm not going to do the search engines job. It's their job
>to find my site and index it. That doesn't mean I won't help them.
DN: now you're two for two in my books. They usually do this based on
everyone else linking. The best way to force google to index a site is to
use blogger and build links. Google owns blogger and it seems to work
much faster for indexing than other blog platforms.
>
>I think if we focused on making amazing Flash and Flex websites that
>people
>want to visit the search engine companies would spend more time on making
>their search engines work with it.
DN; now 3 for 3 in my books.
>
>
>Solutions
> Link Manager type of support with some or all of the below [3] [4] [5]
> Site map that has user URL and content URL
> Site map that has flash / ajax enabled URL, html page URL and content
>URL
>
>With both of the above solutions we could create or have a gui to create a
>sitemap.xml file that defines the fragments our apps listen for and the
>redirect links to get the raw content. We could also have the compiler or
>ant task support the creation of multiple HTML wrapper pages that are
>identical to the main wrapper page except in their name and / or the
>option
>of embedding the content into the page (if html) or if dynamic content it
>would point to a dynamic page.
DN: This is perhaps one of the first solid ideas I have heard. This might
involve extensions to the site map.xml (I haven't looked at it for a
while) but very well worth the time. Being able to map to a page that has
state 1, state 2 and state 3, but 2 and 3 are not put into active memory
until the app is interacted with is problematic. Authoring using the deep
linking is much better IMO as it adheres to the one resource <-> one URI
principle.
Now this comes back to the original question of "what can be done on this
list via the SDK?". Being able to generate this artifact would be a good
idea IMO.
Thanks
Duane
>
>
>
>Example sitemap.xml
><site>
> <page name="home" url="http://example.com/main/#home" rawcontent="
>http://example.com/main.php?page=home" html="http://example.com/home.html"
>/>
> <page name="products" url="http://example.com/main/#products"
>rawcontent="
>http://example.com/main.php?page=products"
>html="http://example.com/products.html"/>
></site>
>
>Site.xml ex 2
><site>
> <page name="home" url="http://example.com/main/#home" ajax="
>http://example.com/main.php?p=10" />
> <page name="products" url="http://example.com/main/#p=10" ajax="
>http://example.com/main/main.php?p=10" />
></site>
>
>
>If we supported something like this and just started using and uploading
>it
>in our projects it might remove the complexities for the search engines.
>
>
>[1]
>http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/proposal-for-making-aja
>x-crawlable.html
>[2]
>http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/proposal-for-making-aja
>x-crawlable.html?showComment=1256080765377#c3966241161139678970
>[3] http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/flexcapacitor
>[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnrx30KahIc
>[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmIz6Upc6dY
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by jude <fl...@gmail.com>.
A few years ago Google posted a proposal for making ajax crawlable [1].
You'll need to read it to get the details but basically if you used a
special URL it would return only the data result not the view. To quote,
In summary, starting with a stateful URL such as
http://example.com/dictionary.html#AJAX , it could be available to both
crawlers and users as
http://example.com/dictionary.html#!AJAX which could be crawled as
http://example.com/dictionary.html?_escaped_fragment_=AJAX which in turn
would be shown to users and accessed as
http://example.com/dictionary.html#!AJAX
End quote.
Here is my comment [2].
I think SEO search results come down to popularity. Is everyone linking to
your page? It might have something to do with Google analytics. How long
people stay on your page.
But as a content creator I think it's up to the search engine to find and
index my site. I'm not going to do the search engines job. It's their job
to find my site and index it. That doesn't mean I won't help them.
I think if we focused on making amazing Flash and Flex websites that people
want to visit the search engine companies would spend more time on making
their search engines work with it.
Solutions
• Link Manager type of support with some or all of the below [3] [4] [5]
• Site map that has user URL and content URL
• Site map that has flash / ajax enabled URL, html page URL and content URL
With both of the above solutions we could create or have a gui to create a
sitemap.xml file that defines the fragments our apps listen for and the
redirect links to get the raw content. We could also have the compiler or
ant task support the creation of multiple HTML wrapper pages that are
identical to the main wrapper page except in their name and / or the option
of embedding the content into the page (if html) or if dynamic content it
would point to a dynamic page.
Example sitemap.xml
<site>
<page name="home" url="http://example.com/main/#home" rawcontent="
http://example.com/main.php?page=home" html="http://example.com/home.html"
/>
<page name="products" url="http://example.com/main/#products" rawcontent="
http://example.com/main.php?page=products"
html="http://example.com/products.html"/>
</site>
Site.xml ex 2
<site>
<page name="home" url="http://example.com/main/#home" ajax="
http://example.com/main.php?p=10" />
<page name="products" url="http://example.com/main/#p=10" ajax="
http://example.com/main/main.php?p=10" />
</site>
If we supported something like this and just started using and uploading it
in our projects it might remove the complexities for the search engines.
[1]
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/proposal-for-making-ajax-crawlable.html
[2]
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/proposal-for-making-ajax-crawlable.html?showComment=1256080765377#c3966241161139678970
[3] http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/flexcapacitor
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnrx30KahIc
[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmIz6Upc6dY
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com>.
On 12-02-27 6:35 PM, "David Francis Buhler" <da...@gmail.com> wrote:
>While I respect your opinion that my theory is factually wrong, I
>respectfully disagree. The cloaking theory I suggested is possible, and
>does not require a Google Appliance. If cloaking is a violation of
>Google's
>Terms, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
>
>[1] http://www.petitiononline.com/stopee/petition.html
>[2]
>http://blog.tylerholmes.com/2008/10/experts-exchangeno-longer-cloaking-jus
>t.html
>[3] http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66355
Let me clarify, I agree that technically what you suggest can work. From
a business perspective though, Google says that what they index must be
the same as what people see on the current site.
Duane
>>
>> Überity.com
>> President & COO
>> Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
>> http://www.uberity.com
>> Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
>> Twitter | @Uberity @duanechaos
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 6:51 PM, Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On 2/27/12 3:22 PM, "Duane Nickull" <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> > DN: I have never seen any evidence of google using content it can
>> >>access.
>> >> > Same for Bing and Yahoo. Flex can basically give it 500 words but
>>for
>> >> > starters Google only takes 200 per site in most cases. They can
>>all
>> >>get
>> >> > text today, but the reality is they don't appear to use it. I am
>>not
>> >> sure
>> >> > how you think an SDK will force them to use it.
>> >> I'm not saying the SDK will try to force anybody to use anything. I
>> >>just
>> >> thought there were issues where folks want to have more control over
>> >>what
>> >> text is found in a SWF, what links are found in the SWF and what
>>buttons
>> >> get
>> >> pushed. I don't remember how Ichabod knew to push the buttons in
>> >> FlexStore.
>> >> >
>> >> > As for Authentication, most pages that require authentication are
>> >> probably
>> >> > not mean to be indexed as the human finding the link to it would
>>face
>> >>the
>> >> > same challenge. What would be the point?
>> >> I think it is expertsexchange.com that seems to be well indexed but
>>you
>> >> have
>> >> to authenticate first. I don't know how they do that.
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Alex Harui
>> >> Flex SDK Team
>> >> Adobe Systems, Inc.
>> >> http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>>
>>
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by David Francis Buhler <da...@gmail.com>.
While I respect your opinion that my theory is factually wrong, I
respectfully disagree. The cloaking theory I suggested is possible, and
does not require a Google Appliance. If cloaking is a violation of Google's
Terms, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
[1] http://www.petitiononline.com/stopee/petition.html
[2]
http://blog.tylerholmes.com/2008/10/experts-exchangeno-longer-cloaking-just.html
[3] http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66355
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 8:32 PM, Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
> On 12-02-27 5:18 PM, "David Francis Buhler" <da...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >My hunch is that their authentication mechanism does not require bots to
> >be
> >authenticated. That might be why you can view the entire page without
> >being
> >authenticated if you request the cached version.
> >
> >[1]
> >
> http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web_Development/Web_Languages-Standards/Fl
> >ex/Q_27377143.html
> >
> >[2]
> >
> http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:h2aRJSoLe1sJ:www.expe
> >
> rts-exchange.com/Web_Development/Web_Languages-Standards/Flex/Q_27377143.h
> >tml+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
>
>
> No. This is wrong. If you want Google to index authenticated pages, you
> must configure the Google Search Appliance or Google mini. Also - what
> you suggest below is not allowed. You would be showing googlebot something
> different from what others can see, this is against the guidelines.
>
> Google published full instructions here. Again, there is nothing in the
> Flex SDK or from a Flex developers perspective I can think of that would
> have to be done.
>
> Duane
>
> ________________________________________
>
> Überity.com
> President & COO
> Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
> http://www.uberity.com
> Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
> Twitter | @Uberity @duanechaos
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> >
> >On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 6:51 PM, Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 2/27/12 3:22 PM, "Duane Nickull" <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> > DN: I have never seen any evidence of google using content it can
> >>access.
> >> > Same for Bing and Yahoo. Flex can basically give it 500 words but for
> >> > starters Google only takes 200 per site in most cases. They can all
> >>get
> >> > text today, but the reality is they don't appear to use it. I am not
> >> sure
> >> > how you think an SDK will force them to use it.
> >> I'm not saying the SDK will try to force anybody to use anything. I
> >>just
> >> thought there were issues where folks want to have more control over
> >>what
> >> text is found in a SWF, what links are found in the SWF and what buttons
> >> get
> >> pushed. I don't remember how Ichabod knew to push the buttons in
> >> FlexStore.
> >> >
> >> > As for Authentication, most pages that require authentication are
> >> probably
> >> > not mean to be indexed as the human finding the link to it would face
> >>the
> >> > same challenge. What would be the point?
> >> I think it is expertsexchange.com that seems to be well indexed but you
> >> have
> >> to authenticate first. I don't know how they do that.
> >> >
> >>
> >> --
> >> Alex Harui
> >> Flex SDK Team
> >> Adobe Systems, Inc.
> >> http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui
> >>
> >>
>
>
>
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com>.
On 12-02-27 5:18 PM, "David Francis Buhler" <da...@gmail.com> wrote:
>My hunch is that their authentication mechanism does not require bots to
>be
>authenticated. That might be why you can view the entire page without
>being
>authenticated if you request the cached version.
>
>[1]
>http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web_Development/Web_Languages-Standards/Fl
>ex/Q_27377143.html
>
>[2]
>http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:h2aRJSoLe1sJ:www.expe
>rts-exchange.com/Web_Development/Web_Languages-Standards/Flex/Q_27377143.h
>tml+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
No. This is wrong. If you want Google to index authenticated pages, you
must configure the Google Search Appliance or Google mini. Also - what
you suggest below is not allowed. You would be showing googlebot something
different from what others can see, this is against the guidelines.
Google published full instructions here. Again, there is nothing in the
Flex SDK or from a Flex developers perspective I can think of that would
have to be done.
Duane
________________________________________
Überity.com
President & COO
Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
http://www.uberity.com
Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
Twitter | @Uberity @duanechaos
>
>
>On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 6:51 PM, Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/27/12 3:22 PM, "Duane Nickull" <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> > DN: I have never seen any evidence of google using content it can
>>access.
>> > Same for Bing and Yahoo. Flex can basically give it 500 words but for
>> > starters Google only takes 200 per site in most cases. They can all
>>get
>> > text today, but the reality is they don't appear to use it. I am not
>> sure
>> > how you think an SDK will force them to use it.
>> I'm not saying the SDK will try to force anybody to use anything. I
>>just
>> thought there were issues where folks want to have more control over
>>what
>> text is found in a SWF, what links are found in the SWF and what buttons
>> get
>> pushed. I don't remember how Ichabod knew to push the buttons in
>> FlexStore.
>> >
>> > As for Authentication, most pages that require authentication are
>> probably
>> > not mean to be indexed as the human finding the link to it would face
>>the
>> > same challenge. What would be the point?
>> I think it is expertsexchange.com that seems to be well indexed but you
>> have
>> to authenticate first. I don't know how they do that.
>> >
>>
>> --
>> Alex Harui
>> Flex SDK Team
>> Adobe Systems, Inc.
>> http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui
>>
>>
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by David Francis Buhler <da...@gmail.com>.
My hunch is that their authentication mechanism does not require bots to be
authenticated. That might be why you can view the entire page without being
authenticated if you request the cached version.
[1]
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web_Development/Web_Languages-Standards/Flex/Q_27377143.html
[2]
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:h2aRJSoLe1sJ:www.experts-exchange.com/Web_Development/Web_Languages-Standards/Flex/Q_27377143.html+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 6:51 PM, Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2/27/12 3:22 PM, "Duane Nickull" <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
>
>
> > DN: I have never seen any evidence of google using content it can access.
> > Same for Bing and Yahoo. Flex can basically give it 500 words but for
> > starters Google only takes 200 per site in most cases. They can all get
> > text today, but the reality is they don't appear to use it. I am not
> sure
> > how you think an SDK will force them to use it.
> I'm not saying the SDK will try to force anybody to use anything. I just
> thought there were issues where folks want to have more control over what
> text is found in a SWF, what links are found in the SWF and what buttons
> get
> pushed. I don't remember how Ichabod knew to push the buttons in
> FlexStore.
> >
> > As for Authentication, most pages that require authentication are
> probably
> > not mean to be indexed as the human finding the link to it would face the
> > same challenge. What would be the point?
> I think it is expertsexchange.com that seems to be well indexed but you
> have
> to authenticate first. I don't know how they do that.
> >
>
> --
> Alex Harui
> Flex SDK Team
> Adobe Systems, Inc.
> http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui
>
>
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com>.
On 12-02-27 3:51 PM, "Alex Harui" <ah...@adobe.com> wrote:
>I'm not saying the SDK will try to force anybody to use anything. I just
>thought there were issues where folks want to have more control over what
>text is found in a SWF, what links are found in the SWF and what buttons
>get
>pushed. I don't remember how Ichabod knew to push the buttons in
>FlexStore.
Ichabod was engineered to seek out alternate states and for other objects
in memory that were intractable with. It was basically a headless flash
player that acted like a human, pushing every button, tab, etc. It then
stripped out anything that was textual. A tab would then instantiate
itself and the data (text) would be available.
The problem with it was that despite a fairly good size engineering
effort, the search vendors basically didn't want it. If you really want
to validate this, perhaps ask the search vendors themselves and ask them
what they would use. Opinions of what they *might* want are pointless if
they don't use it.
Duane
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com>.
On 2/27/12 3:22 PM, "Duane Nickull" <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
> DN: I have never seen any evidence of google using content it can access.
> Same for Bing and Yahoo. Flex can basically give it 500 words but for
> starters Google only takes 200 per site in most cases. They can all get
> text today, but the reality is they don't appear to use it. I am not sure
> how you think an SDK will force them to use it.
I'm not saying the SDK will try to force anybody to use anything. I just
thought there were issues where folks want to have more control over what
text is found in a SWF, what links are found in the SWF and what buttons get
pushed. I don't remember how Ichabod knew to push the buttons in FlexStore.
>
> As for Authentication, most pages that require authentication are probably
> not mean to be indexed as the human finding the link to it would face the
> same challenge. What would be the point?
I think it is expertsexchange.com that seems to be well indexed but you have
to authenticate first. I don't know how they do that.
>
--
Alex Harui
Flex SDK Team
Adobe Systems, Inc.
http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com>.
>
>I watched both videos. I'm not sure why you think there isn't stuff that
>Flex can do better to assist in the better static indexing of content, and
>making the set links available to the search engines. I thought there
>were
>things that Ichabod needed help with (like getting past authentication,
>finding its way through custom navigation because it sometimes misses
>buttons, ignoring some buttons).
DN: I have never seen any evidence of google using content it can access.
Same for Bing and Yahoo. Flex can basically give it 500 words but for
starters Google only takes 200 per site in most cases. They can all get
text today, but the reality is they don't appear to use it. I am not sure
how you think an SDK will force them to use it.
As for Authentication, most pages that require authentication are probably
not mean to be indexed as the human finding the link to it would face the
same challenge. What would be the point?
Since search engines can already get the text, what more would you think
they want? To be frank here, most text is ignored anyways, regardless of
it being in HTML or SWF.
I'll ask Adobe if I can make some of the tests we ran public to help clear
things up.
duane
>
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com>.
On 2/27/12 11:20 AM, "Duane Nickull" <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
> I honestly think that after watching these, you will all agree there is
> nothing that belongs on an SDK discussion list WRT SEO. It is simply not
> needed.
I watched both videos. I'm not sure why you think there isn't stuff that
Flex can do better to assist in the better static indexing of content, and
making the set links available to the search engines. I thought there were
things that Ichabod needed help with (like getting past authentication,
finding its way through custom navigation because it sometimes misses
buttons, ignoring some buttons).
Also, please follow mailing list protocol and quote and comment instead of
top-posting.
--
Alex Harui
Flex SDK Team
Adobe Systems, Inc.
http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com>.
It used to. To understand how the system works, watch this video:
http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2009/01/flash-search-engine-optimization.ht
ml
And this video:
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-evangelists-duane-nickull/seo-secrets-techn
ology-and-magic-behind-flash/
The second one is more important and it start around the 6 minute mark
(not sure why Adobe never trimmed it).
I honestly think that after watching these, you will all agree there is
nothing that belongs on an SDK discussion list WRT SEO. It is simply not
needed.
Duane
________________________________________
Überity.com
President & COO
Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
http://www.uberity.com
Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
Twitter | @Uberity @duanechaos
On 12-02-27 10:57 AM, "Omar Gonzalez" <om...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 10:49 AM, Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>> ... and white
>> text on white background with postion: absolute top -1000px has a better
>> chance to affect the crawler than that thing does...
>>
>
>That also has a high chance of getting you blacklisted off of search
>engines. I wouldn't recommend anyone to do this.
>
>--
>Omar Gonzalez
>s9tpepper@apache.org
>Apache Flex PPMC Member
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com>.
On 2/27/12 10:57 AM, "Omar Gonzalez" <om...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 10:49 AM, Left Right <ol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ... and white
>> text on white background with postion: absolute top -1000px has a better
>> chance to affect the crawler than that thing does...
>>
>
> That also has a high chance of getting you blacklisted off of search
> engines. I wouldn't recommend anyone to do this.
>
And, Oleg, while I agree that SWF metadata and HTML metadata and the current
SWF sniffer haven't been useful, I don't see any reason why folks can't make
another attempt at it. Richer JS apps that don't keep fetching new HTML
pages have similar problems and I believe energy is being spent to solve it
there as well.
There was some discussion in Adobe about defining patterns to make it easier
to tie states to deep-linking. A SWF sniffer could detect the existence of
that pattern to make them appear as links to a search engine.
Or, even something more brute force is possible where the compiler or some
tool has a mode where it will generate a site-map for you based on clues you
leave in your MXML.
--
Alex Harui
Flex SDK Team
Adobe Systems, Inc.
http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Omar Gonzalez <om...@gmail.com>.
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 10:49 AM, Left Right <ol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ... and white
> text on white background with postion: absolute top -1000px has a better
> chance to affect the crawler than that thing does...
>
That also has a high chance of getting you blacklisted off of search
engines. I wouldn't recommend anyone to do this.
--
Omar Gonzalez
s9tpepper@apache.org
Apache Flex PPMC Member
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com>.
No. Google does not use metadata keywords.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keyw
ords-meta-tag.html
You are basing your SEO discussion on a bunch of false assumptions. To be
honest, I don't think this is even a conversation worth having unless you
want to talk about using data providers (which Google does use).
If you want to have this conversation, first do the research to understand
how dynamic SE ranking works. The beliefs below have been outdated since
2002.
Duane
________________________________________
Überity.com
President & COO
Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
http://www.uberity.com
Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
Twitter | @Uberity @duanechaos
On 12-02-27 10:49 AM, "Left Right" <ol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>That sounds pretty much like what was the name of the meta tags once used
>in the HTML <head> to describe the page? I think this was so often
>misused,
>that the search engines particularly ignore that part of the HTML and
>white
>text on white background with postion: absolute top -1000px has a better
>chance to affect the crawler than that thing does...
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
That sounds pretty much like what was the name of the meta tags once used
in the HTML <head> to describe the page? I think this was so often misused,
that the search engines particularly ignore that part of the HTML and white
text on white background with postion: absolute top -1000px has a better
chance to affect the crawler than that thing does...
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Ariel Jakobovits <ar...@yahoo.com>.
I think the aim would be to let the developer specify the search data in a properties file that gets compiled into the swf in a specified location with a specified format to avoid having to automatically convert the UI into meaningful search information.
Ariel Jakobovits
Email: arieljake@yahoo.com
Phone: 650-690-2213
Fax: 650-641-0031
Cell: 650-823-8699
________________________________
From: Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>
To: flex-dev@incubator.apache.org
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 12:40 AM
Subject: Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
> find ways to make it easy to sniff a SWF for searchable text
That would be easier if the rendering of SWF was be an entirely separate
program. Then, companies, who are interested in searching the output, would
be able to "see" what has been actually shown to the user. But there's a
huge difference between what users are able to see and what they actually
saw. I.e. almost every portfolio kind of site has an "about us" page, where
people put the biography of their CEO and some other random stuff nobody
cares about (well, maybe the CEO does...). An automatic crawler wouldn't be
able to replicate human behavior if they follow the tab index... besides,
Flash, especially Flex application have a tendency to completely mess up
the tab indexing, so that parts of application become completely
inaccessible through it. Then there are things like scrolling... But when
you think of all input modes available on touch screen devices... so,
again, probably, the crawler would have to know what are the built-in input
events that have registered handlers and then try to pipe these events to
see what happens in response... Imitating drag events? sounds like mission
impossible, if the scenario is to drag something to a particular spot in
order to initiate some interaction. Either Google comes up with a
Skynet-like crawler, or that isn't going to happen :)
It sounds like it's really cheaper to hire labor force in the third world
countries and ask them to write a report on what they saw on the site, then
to write an intelligent crawler :D
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
> find ways to make it easy to sniff a SWF for searchable text
That would be easier if the rendering of SWF was be an entirely separate
program. Then, companies, who are interested in searching the output, would
be able to "see" what has been actually shown to the user. But there's a
huge difference between what users are able to see and what they actually
saw. I.e. almost every portfolio kind of site has an "about us" page, where
people put the biography of their CEO and some other random stuff nobody
cares about (well, maybe the CEO does...). An automatic crawler wouldn't be
able to replicate human behavior if they follow the tab index... besides,
Flash, especially Flex application have a tendency to completely mess up
the tab indexing, so that parts of application become completely
inaccessible through it. Then there are things like scrolling... But when
you think of all input modes available on touch screen devices... so,
again, probably, the crawler would have to know what are the built-in input
events that have registered handlers and then try to pipe these events to
see what happens in response... Imitating drag events? sounds like mission
impossible, if the scenario is to drag something to a particular spot in
order to initiate some interaction. Either Google comes up with a
Skynet-like crawler, or that isn't going to happen :)
It sounds like it's really cheaper to hire labor force in the third world
countries and ask them to write a report on what they saw on the site, then
to write an intelligent crawler :D
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com>.
On 2/26/12 11:44 AM, "Duane Nickull" <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
> Search engines have the technology to do this but do not use it. I ran
> some tests over an 18 month period. This video shows the original
> FLashRunner
>
I would think they gave up because it didn't work well for Flex apps. I
think it could be within the realm of this project to:
1) find ways to make it easy to sniff a SWF for searchable text
2) provide a tool to search engine companies to sniff the SWF.
--
Alex Harui
Flex SDK Team
Adobe Systems, Inc.
http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui
Re: SEO for SWF Was: Flash Platform roadmap
Posted by Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com>.
Search engines have the technology to do this but do not use it. I ran
some tests over an 18 month period. This video shows the original
FLashRunner
http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2009/01/flash-search-engine-optimization.ht
ml
This video explains in more details the results of the tests:
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2009-envision/seo-secrets-technology-and-magi
c-behind-flash/
The basic premise is that Search engines basically only use content for
initial ranking. Everything else is dynamic. The above video explains
the mechanisms in more detail.
Duane Nickull
________________________________________
Überity.com
President & COO
Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
http://www.uberity.com
Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
Twitter | @Uberity @duanechaos
On 12-02-25 11:54 PM, "Ariel Jakobovits" <ar...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> what the search engine project was doing
>
>Was that project trying to expose more information about the content in
>swfs to search engines for inclusion in search results?
>
>Bouncing off of that, could we program a standard into our new flex
>compiler's swfs where search engines can expect to find information to
>help in indexing. For example, would knowing that a "3x5card" of useful
>information pertaining to SEO was located at byte 350 encourage search
>engines to reach there?
>
>
>Ariel Jakobovits
>ajakobov@adobe.com
>650-350-0282
>
>On Feb 25, 2012, at 12:00 PM, Nicholas Kwiatkowski <ni...@spoon.as>
>wrote:
>
>> what the search engine project was doing