by Micah Fisher-Kirshner, Search Strategist

Since its introduction in 1996, Flash has become one of the most widely-used platforms on the Internet for web animations, web design, and website development. Though its use is not search engine friendly (with only the recent ability from Google to index links within Flash), the benefits of Flash have propelled its use around the globe. However, there is a dark side of Flash that you should know about: Flash can potentially run third-party scripts that gather your website’s information without your knowledge.

Last November Google announced that Google Analytics can track Flash by placing its code within the Flash file. This was received with great excitement as it allowed Flash websites to track their own Flash files, videos, and actions that were not captured as effectively as a regular HTML website. This announcement, however, spawned the troubling potential for malicious developers to run black hat analytics scripts through Flash that could effectively track a third party’s web data without their direct knowledge.

At Red Bricks Media, we ran a test to determine the seriousness of this threat. Through our test we determined that anytime a user uploads or embeds a third-party video, pixel, or graphic made from Flash, the data from that page can be transmitted into the same third-party’s Google Analytics or an analytics package built solely for the purpose of gathering black hat analytics competitive intelligence data.

People will embed scripts into their websites to become an affiliate partner, to run ads, or to display their latest movie RSS feed without reading any privacy notes, terms of service, or end user license agreements. Many of these Flash files can come in innocuous forms such as a common VeriSign Seal used by ecommerce websites (please note that VeriSign is not doing anything black hat). The openness of the web and the benefits that are given through online advertising are often abused by black hat tactics, so it’s important to be careful about which scripts you include on your website.

As a general rule, if you are thinking about embedding third-party Flash files or code, only place code from places you trust. Furthermore, we strongly suggest that you have your developers read the privacy notes and use data packet sniffing to determine just what these files are possibly sending out. Your data is a valuable asset in the competitive online world; do not let other sites have access to it without your explicit understanding or agreement.

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by Craig Hordlow, Chief Search Strategist

I believe that, by definition, accurate predictions about the future sound outlandish.

Think of the world as we know it in 2007 and try to imagine accurately predicting this reality in 1979.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were interviewed on May 30 at the D5 conference. Clearly, these are two men who have dramatically shaped the world we live in. The interview explored their past and current contributions, and their future aspirations.

There were many aspects of the interview that were fascinating, but from a search perspective, there was a theme that signified a large change in search on the near horizon – one that may seem outlandish.

I believe this change will be the eventual elimination of the browser.

Two of history’s greatest technical visionaries were enthusiastic about rich internet applications. At one point, with a wave of a hand to the ether, Gates described content that existed in “the cloud” – referring to the web as he described the processing limitations of the browser.

Both men described how their companies are making richer applications by developing for devices (iPhone). Jobs also explained the limitations of a web browser, and how the future of the internet lies in a large departure from a browser based experience.

So what does this mean for search?

Well, currently search engines robots cannot read rich internet applications (RIA), which are becoming an increasing part of the web. This means Ajax, JavaScript, Flash and video. As developers move away from the browser, they move away from discoverability.

Despite how sophisticated search engine robots appear, they are actually quite primitive. They only understand very simple text based content, and at the rate developers are employing richer media forms, this is going to become a large problem.

SEOs are aware of this problem and have created solutions – the most common one being creating a robot-friendly version of parts, if not all, of their site for search.

However, this is not a long term solution. At some point, search engines will have to improve their ability to read RIA’s.

Until that day arrives, it is imperative that designers and developers make sure that a robot friendly version of their content exists, and that these pages have been reviewed by a professional SEO. Simply having the pages is not necessarily going to assure desirable ranking.

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