A talk on SEO done in New York at the first Flash and the City event May 16, 2010.

1. Secrets, Technology and Magic Behind Flash Flash and the City 2010 Duane Nickull Sr. Technology Evangelist 1

2. 2 Speaker bio - Duane Nickull Chair - OASIS SOA Reference Model Technical Committee (2005-2009) Community Member (Planning Committee) - OntologForum (2002 – current) Contributor - OASIS SOA Reference Architecture Technical Committee (current) Contributor – Most Web Services Specifications Host – Duane’s World TV (http://tv.adobe.com) Contributor/architect - W3C Web Services Architecture (2000-2002) Chief Architect/Chair - United Nations CEFACT Technical Architecture (SOA) (2001-2006) Chair - OASIS eBusiness SOA Technical Committee (2003-2005) Chief Architect - ebXML Technical Architecture(1998 – 2001 first major SOA) Co-inventor - GoXML Contextual XML Search (1998 - 51 unique patent points) Co-Inventor - XML Commerce Pro (1997-1998) first fully XML commerce engine Author (books, white papers, technical articles0 Speaker (Conferences, Universities …) 22nd Century http://www.myspace.com/22ndcentury

3. Some work http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=soa+white+paper&btnG=Google+Search http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=search+engine+optimization+tricks&btnG=Search

4. This beat out MSDN, IBM Developer Networks and Sun DN http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=enterprise+developer+resources&btnG=Search

5. Demo search in Google for: SOA White Paper (2,110,000 results) Adobe Cloud Computing (2,570,000 results) Sombrio (Sombrio is done in Flash) 1,510,000 results Web 2.0 Architecture (23,100,000 results) Search Engine Optimization Tricks (4,120,000 results) Understanding REST (74,900,000 results)

6. Before we tell you how we did this – ETHICS! Mechanisms are in place to prevent one person from cheating to elevate their rankings. Consider what you do in the “spirit and intent” of the search engine architects; Take the time to STUDY THE DOCUMENTATION from the search engine vendor on how they rank web pages! Utilize the publicly available information and you will find plenty of ways to elevate your site without resorting to “tricks”; ask yourself if your contemplated action is something a general member of the public would do before doing it. Ask yourself why you want to achieve the end goal. If you employ black magic tricks to get your site in the top ten for “donuts”, yet your site is totally irrelevant to donuts, you have essentially wasted everyone’s time. The rules and systems are in place for a good reason, Respect them!

7. Agenda A breakdown of what SEO really entails. Understanding the basic forces working against you. A look at Ichabod and other breakthroughs What testing needs to be done Some tips you can employ today.

8. Search Engine Optimization phases Can be broken into two main phases: The initial crawling, indexing and page rank Dynamic page rank scoring using adaptive algorithms 1 2

9. It takes time. Shortcuts are not always in your best interest….

10. RULE #1: Do not get too worried about initial page rank! This is only a starting point, all is dynamic afterwards. Google’s page rank has some funny results http://www.blogger.com/publish-confirmation.g?blogID=17460203&postID=8164939958507135964&timestamp=1224750925988&javascriptEnabled=true

11. RULE #1: Do not get too worried about initial page rank! Why 8/10 for the admin page; 7/10 for the public page????

12. Dynamic Ranking is FAR more important than initial Yahoo and Google watch what you do!

13. Where to start What term do you want to optimize for? Too many people do not do the proper research here. Example #1 – I want to be #1 for the term “Ottawa Mobile Spa” That term garners only 3 search per month worldwide Example #2 – I want to be #1 for the term “Berlin books” Does that mean “Books in Berlin” or “Books about Berlin”? Use https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal or similar!

14. Agenda A breakdown of what SEO really entails. Understanding the basic forces working against you. A look at Ichabod and other breakthroughs! What testing needs to be done Some tips you can employ today.

15. The problem of binary/dynamic content access Link Crawler HTML Container State State State Page Relevance/Indexing Binary Black Box Search engines have trouble accessing content in different states, unlike humans. ??? Remote data provided to app

16. Deferred Creation – could be an issue if not created? DEMO TABS

17. Binary Content Content needs to be able to be read, indexed… Silverlight and other rich media formats http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=72746#Top ”Google can crawl and index the text content of Flash files, but we still have problems accessing the content of other rich media formats such as Silverlight.”

18. Forces can be mitigated – Speech Search in F4V http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/production/videosearch/ DEMO

19. Agenda A breakdown of what SEO really entails. Understanding the basic forces working against you. A look at Ichabod What testing needs to be done Some tips you can employ today.

20. A breakthrough Adobe has created a server technology enabling computer applications to understand the content of a SWF file by using the Flash Player runtime. Adobe has partnered with the leaders in search, Yahoo! and Google The solution is a true collaboration with between Adobe and the search engines designing APIs that let their code talk to Flash Player and drive the search experience Text and link data from the runtime areare available to be indexed. Users don’t have to do anything New search results and more accurate search results are available Content owners don’t have to do anything Works with all versions of SWF content Works with Flex applications

21. Link Crawler Ichabod How Ichabod works with a Search Spider Page Relevance/Indexing Virtual User Network Manager SWF Parser HTML Parser This slide contains animation. For a PPT version email dnickull at adobe.com Duane to demonstrate – the demo is recorded at http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2009/01/flash-search-engine-optimization.html

22. What you really need to know: ??? Wedo not understand fully how much content Search Engines will index or how they will weight it.

24. Discover links within Flash files (DEMO)

25. Load external resources and associate the content with the parent file

26. Support common JavaScript techniques for embedding Flash, such as SWFObject and SWFObject2.

27. Index sites scripted with AS1 and AS2, even if the ActionScript is obfuscated.Reference:http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/06/flash-indexing-with-external-resource.html

28. Remote data loading and linking to parent!

29. Google follows Flash links (AS2 and AS3)? As reported by guava, yes. The two very simple Flash movies were created using Flash MX. Both contained a standard button and a GetURL action in layer within the movie. The button had the following action script added: on (release) { getURL("http://www.example.com/flash-test/scs.php?pageid=5"); } We then added the following to keyframe 10: getURL("http://www.example.com/flash-test/scs.php?pageid=6"); http://www.search-engine-war.co.uk/2008/07/flash-time-to-c.html

30. Google follows Flash links (AS2 and AS3)? The results! 1. Text link crawled: (Googlebot IP: 66.249.73.27, Time: 16.18) 2. Standard embed flash link crawled: (Googlebot IP: 66.249.73.27, Time: 17.29) 3. Standard embed hidden flash link crawled: (Googlebot IP: 66.249.73.27, Time: 17.29) 4. SWFObject flash link crawled: (Googlebot IP: 66.249.73.27, Time: 18.28) 5. SWFObject hidden flash link crawled: (Googlebot IP: 66.249.73.27, Time: 18.28) http://www.search-engine-war.co.uk/2008/07/flash-time-to-c.html

31. Update on June 19, 2009: “We index sites with AS3 as well. The ActionScript version isn't particularly relevant in our Indexing process, so we support older versions of AS in addition to the latest.”

32. Breakthrough – Google now indexing Deep Linking Deep linking causes the URL in the location bar to reflect the state of the application. Several kits available.

33. Deep Linking – more restful! Deep linking relies on communication between the browser and the Flex application Enable deep linking in Flex Builder 1. Select Project > Properties. 2. Select the Flex Compiler option. 3. Select the "Enable integration with browser navigation" option. http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1537v1483 Here is a cool concept: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?DuaneNickull How did that get indexed??

34. Getting non-REST style URI’s in search results. Here is a cool concept: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?DuaneNickull How did that get indexed??

35. Agenda A breakdown of what SEO really entails. Understanding the basic forces working against you. A look at Ichabod What testing needs to be done Some tips you can employ today.

36. Study over 1, 3, 6 12 months Data ProvidersText Labels metadata HTML: Unique1 HTML Data ProvidersText Labels metadata SWF: Unique1 All Unique Terms Pure – no one can search and click.

37. Agenda A breakdown of what SEO really entails. Understanding the basic forces working against you. A look at Ichabod What testing needs to be done Some tips you can employ today.

38. Dynamic Page Ranking – understanding your main focus! Dynamic page ranking Search engines constantly monitor what you search for and what you click on. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=10&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.techcrunch.com%2F2008%2F04%2F08%2Fadobe-launches-media-player-adobe-tv%2F&ei=r9igSKvYG5muoQSFvIDhBw&usg=AFQjCNHebfp3kT5hwlNu5XEqDAnJbzNEOQ&sig2=ROLkXy5aMzo4XQAEi4dSRw

40. A change in Google Architecture?

42. This won’t do much. Why? WRONG!!!

43. This would work, but Google would detect a spike! http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&pwst=1&q=Adobe+max+2008&start=10&sa=N MIGHT HELP! This does help!

44. XHTML as a data provider!

45. Best solution: As many links as you can attract! DO NOT USELINK FARMS For hire!!

46. Blah blah blah – the other obvious stuff In HTML, based on many factors The text of a page The text hyperlinked to the page The meta tags (keywords), BUT only if they also appear in the article The URL The page name Page title Number of pages relevant for a topic pointing at that page

47. Some general tips Research your search term(s) carefully No more than 3 words Ensure your domain has these terms Register the local country domain too. Use alt text for all images Use meta keywords and add your terms in the body of your page, but no more than 7%. Use email signatures Page titles H1 near top of page Name the images, SWF’s the search term names

48. More Resources http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2008/07/searchable-flash-some-early-tips.html http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080630006649&newsLang=en http://www.sitemaps.org/faq.php http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/swf_searchability.html http://technoracle.blogspot.com- for research announcements

50. 46 Speaker bio - Duane Nickull Current Chair - OASIS SOA Reference Model Technical Committee (OASIS Standard as of 2006) Community Member (Planning Committee) - Ontolog Forum Contributor - OASIS SOA Reference Architecture Technical Committee Contributor – Most Web Services Specifications Host – Duane’s World TV (http://tv.adobe.com) Past: Contributor/architect - W3C Web Services Architecture Chief Architect/Chair - United Nations CEFACT Technical Architecture (SOA) Chair - OASIS eBusiness SOA Technical Committee (2003-2005) Chief Architect - ebXML Technical Architecture(1998 – 2001 first major SOA) Co-inventor - GoXML Contextual XML Search (1998 - 51 unique patent points) Co-Inventor - XML Commerce Pro (1997-1998) first fully XML commerce engine Author (books, white papers, technical articles0 Speaker (Conferences, Universities …) Duane’s band 22nd Century http://www.myspace.com/22ndcentury