Now Google can read Flash movies

I have long had mixed feelings about Flash. It's great when used as a slide show for showcasing products, but when you have to sit and watch a long movie when all you want to do is look up some product information, it can end up feeling downright gimmicky. By far its biggest drawback is the fact that search engines can't find it, which means investing in an additional non-flash website for search engines.

Now all this has changed, with Google and Adobe recently announcing that text contained in flash movies and even Flash "gadgets" such as buttons or menus will now be searchable. This is certainly welcome news for many businesses who rely on search engine traffic for their sales, but it's clearly early days still. Last time we checked on Google for Flash websites, we got mixed results (see screenshot below). My guess is that it will take several months for Google to perfect their indexing of Flash websites.