Adobe tool to improve search engines' view of Flash video

NEW YORK - Internet users will now have an easier time finding sites that rely heavily on the popular Flash video format. Adobe Systems Inc., the format's developer, has released a customized version of its Flash Player software that allows Google Inc.'s search engine and others to see the elements of web pages embedded with Flash content the same way a human would. Search crawlers, the programs that find and index content for search engines, currently have a difficult time "seeing" non-text formats. Although they can often index static text and links within basic Flash files, many web pages associated with Flash video are dynamically generated on the fly as visitors are ready to view them. And some web pages are now designed almost entirely in Flash, with menus and other features embedded within the Flash video. Adobe's new... [read full story]