12 November 2010 | Author: M. Thomson SEO & Affiliate Consultant

Google Preview ignores Flash, yet Google claims Flash indexing gets better

Just a few days ago, Google announced Instant Previews, where the search behemoth enabled users to view an instant visual preview of a website direct from the search results pages. It seems Google thinks a try before you buy approach will improve user experience.

However, users playing around with Instant Previews may have noticed Google does not preview Flash-based content. For example, if you instant preview any YouTube content, you can see - or, rather, not see - the video is missing. That's because viewing YouTube videos requires Flash.

Google Preview ignores Flash, yet Google claims Flash indexing gets better

A solution to make such previews more user-friendly would be to see a thumbnail, potentially of the first frame of the video, from the results page. Users would then better know what to expect from the video.

YouTube or Google could capture and render a thumbnail behind the Flash video to integrate into the previews - certainly accessibility bods could help YouTube find the best solution.

But this should make us wonder how other websites using Flash fair. This issue isn't just isolated to YouTube - if you have a fancy Flash file on your key landing pages, Instant Previews may not help improve your website's click-through rates (CTR) as they suffer the same fate as YouTube clips.

Ironically, yesterday, Google blogged about its improved indexing of Flash-based content. While respect is due for Google's efforts in this field - it's likely helped a lot of websites reach their potential - one must suggest Google consider communicating better across teams.

In short - and in a time of Instant Previews - it would be advisable to always consider how your website renders without Flash, JavaScript, images or stylesheets, as people browse the web through many media - not just on desktops.