Search engines struggle with flash websites, which is plain to see when you look at the site search results for any flash sites.  Usually the search engine spider robot won’t get beyond the first page let alone the other pages.  And of the page it came across, not much will serve as content to provide the search engine information as to what that web page is about.

Although Google is updating to improve its indexation of flash, things are a long way off for search savvy advertisers to be tempted enough to start building sites in flash.  However the issue is not limited to corporate websites, another very issue if not more important is display advertising (commonly using flash technology).

As more and more broadband users come online, and advertisers engage in flash based display advertising, flash technology is fast becoming a useful barometer of up and coming online brands on the internet.  Remember what Erci Schmidt of Google alluded to earlier this year that brands to clean up Internet ‘cesspool’.

Given the amount of new websites appearing on the internet and the ease at which webmasters will engage in search engine optimisation to manipulate search engine results, Google needs to rely on ‘other’ signals than links from other websites to serve better and relevant results.  The statement by Eric Schmidt is near enough an acknowledgement of that.

Some may tout “Social Media” as a solution to this and to some extent search engines will already take this into account. However, consider the amount of display advertising being used on the internet – are these not a signal of brands?  Many webmasters would be hard pressed to start investing in display advertising in order to manipulate the search engines.

From Google’s point of view it makes sense to take this point of view as internet users will recognise brands and therefore trust the information given by brands.  But doesn’t this lead to an abuse of power so that Brands start giving out false information?  Not so in my opinion, Google probably recognises that Brands have something to lose which is recognised in public financial statements – the value of brand.  Even if all bloggers and webmasters were telling the truth in their published content, they have nothing to lose and therefore are not incentivised to stop giving false information.

This is why Google needs to read Flash, it would have a greater measure of what Brands are providers of relevant information.  After all, aren’t Brands the highest spenders in search?