That's right. Let me say that again. Video is now searchable and being indexed by Google and Yahoo.
Thanks to Adobe Systems who came up with the technology for search engines to read SWF files and index all of the information they contain.
"We are releasing technology to Google and Yahoo that enables them to crawl and index SWF files. They are now searchable. This will open up millions of Flash files to search."
They (Adobe) passed that technology off to both Google and Yahoo yesterday.
Why is this so important?
No matter what format you create your video in, when you upload it to let's say...
- Youtube
- Google Video
- Vimeo
Veoh - Seesmic
- Mogulus
- Viddler
- Wellcomemat
- Kicklight
- TokBox
- Stickam
- Justin.tv
- UStream
- Y Live
- BlogTV
- 5Min
- Blip.tv
Just to name a few. They'll convert it to flash (that's a .swf file).
They do mention that they are indexing text and links right now however, considering the ability of systems like Jott and Utterz to recognize voice and convert it to text it won't be long before the search engines will be able to index every word that leaves your lips. Google is already working on that.
http://www.viddler.com/explore/mikemueller/videos/2/
"Google is already rolling out the SWF-indexing technology, while Yahoo still “has some work to do,” says Turner. Even so, this won’t solve all the problems with Flash content showing up on search engines."
This post brought to you courtesy of Mike Mueller.
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BTW: The total production time for this was less than 10 minutes. 1 take on the video, added the text, inserted the video between the front and back images, convert to Mpeg2, click to upload, embed into post, hit publish. How easy is that?
When Google and Yahoo can index the spoken word as well, that will be huge, no doubt about it.
That's incredible Mike. And I'm sure it will have a separate "video search" feature. So now is an awesome time to start getting videos out there.
Mike - that will be great. I love using Piclens to toggle through Youtube and flicker. I just love that application.
Really cool new technology, at some point we will no longer need these pesky humans...Signed Brett's Computer
Seriously, thanks for breaking the news to me, now I need to go out and buy a webcam today!
Kevin - I think Google is already doing it. Someone is. It's not perfect yet so we don't know about it yet.
BB - Or they'll offer up the results as both options.
Maureen - It's not going to be cool, it is cool!
Brett - Webcam and /or a Camcorder. I do my quick comments on free webcam (lousy image) and the others on my HD JVC. I like the video quality but that also leads to a bigger file.
Does this mean I can't hide behind my skinny picture anymore? Scary!
Mike,
Great detective work! However, the majority of video sites (WellcomeMat being one) convert to FLV format for playback and, according to Google's report, these will not be searched. That said, an important step has been taken...you are definitely right about that.
-CS
Krista - It's time to get in front of the camera. C'mon, we'll support you!
Christian - I saw that (FLV) and you raise a very good point. I haven't checked out WellcomeMat yet but here's some snippets I did have handy:
So far I haven't found a single FLV
YouTube:
Seesmic:
Veoh:
Viddler:
Vimeo:
Christian - OK, I checked out WellcomeMatt and couldn't find any .flv files - instead I found all .swf
Here's the page I pulled up: LINK
This is what I found:
Here's what I didn't find: (FLV or flv)
Mike you are really liking the videos in your blogs I see. I will need to do more of them! Just to keep up with you!! LOL
Unfortunately, I don't believe this is correct. This press release was about Flash websites, not Flash video. There is a difference.
Many web designers have designed entire sites in Flash, and although they looked cool and beautiful, they essentially were invisible to search engines, which is why you see fewer and fewer of them. I actually asked Dan Crow, who is the crawl manager for Google about this a year ago when I met him, and he specifically said that Google had problems indexing sites such as this and recommended NOT doing sites entirely in Flash if searchability was a concern.
I read that press release as well, and I understand it to be that FLASH sites will be able to be indexed, but Flash VIDEO (.flv) files are a different animal. Most video websites encode in .flv format as Christan said, and unfortunately I don't think this announcement has anything to do with Flash video, just Flash.
If you look at the Google release, it says Also note that we do not index FLV files, such as the videos that play on YouTube, because these files contain no text elements.
They will be indexing TEXT elements of FLASH websites, but cannot index any images.
Thanks Mike. I'm going to start using my video more.
Pam
good to know
Fred - You are correct. Christian from WellcomeMatt explained that while the browser sees .swf it's a "wrapper" for the .flv file. But that's ok. Video has too many positives all on it's own. I've found that my videos descriptions have more SER juice than the post they went with. Google is ranking my descriptive text higher than the very same text found in the blog post.