Google now indexing Flash files, revealing otherwise hidden pages

Back in April I mentioned that Google was beginning to index the "invisible web" by going through forms on websites. Now according to a post in the Google Webmaster Central Blog, Google will begin indexing parts of Adobe Flash files as well, including URLs that appear in Flash files.

This change probably won't have a big effect on websites that have the now-ubiquitous Flash element on the home page. (The current iteration of Intel's and PTC's websites come to mind, but you can see Flash on the home pages of thousands of companies nowadays. It's almost as widespread as the Flash "splash screen" that was in style among web designers for a number of years, until savvy webmasters realized they generally hurt search engine results.) Most of these home page Flash elements aren't purposely trying to hide URLs or information within the file, so you shouldn't have any problem if Google decides to index it and display the results in searches.

The sites that will have problems are the ones using Flash applications for more than just eye candy on their site -- for example, an application that gathers information, then passes the user to a "hidden" URL. If your Flash isn't coded properly, Google could find the URLs and let people into areas you don't want them to get into...at least not without completing some other action. See this post and the associated comments for a good discussion on techniques.

Just like I mentioned in my post in April, a thorough robots.txt file should save you a lot of headaches if you're putting "secret" URLs into Flash.

If you're using Flash, talk to your web developer to make sure this new change isn't going to expose too many of your pages to Google.