Search optimization techniques for RIAs

A variety of technologies and platforms are used to create rich Internet applications (RIAs), including Ajax, Curl, JavaFX, Microsoft Silverlight, and the Adobe Flash Platform. It's no secret that RIAs present challenges for search engines. Understanding the importance of this issue, Adobe has partnered with Google and Yahoo! to get to the heart of the issue and to come up with solutions that can not only work with the Adobe Flash Platform but also provide insight and fundamentals that can influence future technological advances.

In fact, a similar issue arose a few years ago with the PDF format. At the time, search engines had trouble recognizing the content contained in these documents. Now, search engines can crawl and index PDF files rather easily. The point is that eventually this issue will be solved, and Adobe, Google, and Yahoo! are leading the charge.

Last year Adobe announced a major breakthrough with the release of optimized Adobe Flash Player technology (since dubbed "Flash Player for Search Engines"), which is essentially a "headless" version of Flash Player that can change states of SWF content and gain access to the text content residing within. For a quick overview of how Flash Player for Search Engines works, please watch Duane Nickull's video blog post about it.

While Adobe, Google, and Yahoo! continue to collaborate to solve the problem, there are things you can do today to improve the relevance of your SWF content in search results. This article explains what the issues and challenges are and how to overcome them, whether you are a developer, designer, content owner, website owner, project manager, or even an SEO expert.

For example, suppose you've got a site built using Adobe Flash technology. You've received rave reviews on the slick design, smooth animation sequences, and overall powerful user experience. It does a great job of establishing a unique brand experience, it was developed for easy updates, and it is just flat-out cool. Schedule, budget, and content challenges were overcome and now everyone is basking in the glory. This article will help you answer one of the most important questions, and one that few people ask at the onset of a project: "Oh, by the way, does the site work with search engines?" Sound familiar?

This question usually arises only when the work is completed and your client begins searching for terms related to their brand, only to find that the site ranks much lower than expected. Most of the time, creating a search-friendly site was not part of the scope, nor was it considered or discussed when establishing the information architecture, design, and functional specifications.

Considering all the different criteria that need to be considered and prioritized when developing RIAs—client expectations, design decisions, content requirements, functionality decisions—it is very important in the planning stages to outline exactly how your RIA will comply with search. You will benefit in the long run if you spend the time up front to create a search-friendly RIA. The goal of this article is not to add another discipline to juggle, but to provide you with search best practices that can be integrated into the development cycle. Yes, it can be done.

To make best use of this article, you should be familiar with Adobe Flash technology and rich Internet applications, and have an advanced understanding of web development techniques.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

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