Google have announced that they are now able to index flash files better than before. I’m hoping Google have tightened things up before launching as otherwise this could give a short period of opportunity to abuse the Google index if loopholes have been left open.

I can’t say this with absolute certainty of course because Google keeps its cards very close to its chest at all times. However the nature of flash movies does give developers different ways of trying to manipulate the Googlebot.

Due to the non linear format of flash movies is it possible to add false frames into a movie containing keyword rich copy that the end user is not going to see? This of course is against the webmaster guidelines but people won’t be able to spot this kind of thing as easily as on a standard HTML page and therefore reporting offenders isn’t going to happen so often.

I’m sure Google have taken steps where they can to try and avoid this but people will always find a way around measures. I’ll be keeping a close eye on search results!

Also the lack of search engine indexing has always been a major reason not to have a flash only website and this might mean more flash only sites will spring up than before. I don’t have a problem with this as long as they are developed as websites with usability in mind rather than just having a splash movie that look pretty but does little else.

The vision of the semantic web was that of Tim Berners-Lee’s - to ensure it was a universal medium for data, information and knowledge.

A noble idea, I’m just not sure this is going to be a realistic goal due to human nature’s tendency to try and exploit technologies for their own ends.

Certainly if this goal is achievable now is the right time for it to take off. There is a buzz online with regard to various technologies that can be used to achieve it (including microformats) with many proponents to semantic web cause.

The issue is that all these methods rely on correct and honest use online. In it’s simplest form the semantic web attempted to use meta tags in years go by. These became a well known method for black hat search engine optimisers to try and shoe horn inappropriate keywords into pages to try and fool the search engines. The result? Search engines generally ignore meta tags because of this easy abuse.

So is this also going to be the case for the new drive for a universal information medium? Not currently maybe. As it stands the uptake isn’t large enough so there doesn’t seem to be any advantage in trying to provide inaccurate data. But just wait until the tipping point is reached I’m sure that search engines will try to lean on this extra layer to improve results. Some people will be waiting to exploit it.

The only thing we can hope is that the lessons constantly being learnt from the constant battle against the black hats can be applied against them again to ensure this new semantic vision isn’t muddied. I also feel that social media is going to become even more of a watchdog for content quality - those millions of eyes put to good use. The advantages of the semantic web can’t be ignored - machines understanding human content opens so many doors.

As usual though the main issue here is getting people to use the technologies. From a business perspective people aren’t going to adopt this without it providing some kind of return on investment. Implementation is simple in most cases so I can perhaps see people dipping their toes in the water and this gradual adoption may start the tide. I for one will be looking at the hCalendar, hCard and XFN formats as a starting point.