I posted a little while back about Google’s better support for Flash movies. At the time I was more worried about the potential for abuse by black hat SEOs however an article dissecting in more detail about what Google can and can’t see in Flash movies has reassured me slightly and what’s more it backs up my belief that if you want to be listing in search engines relying on Flash isn’t going to help.

The biggest thing that I noticed involved where JavaScript is used to embed a Flash movie into the page. In these cases it is unlikely Google will be able to access the Flash movie and therefore your content is again worthless. So if you’re using the fantastic standards compliant swfobject make sure you include backwards compatible object tags to ensure Google sees your movies! Or better still only use Flash where you can’t do the same thing in HTML and CSS.

There is always talk about possible replacements for Google when it comes to search and recently is no difference with the release of Cuil.

However I believe Google’s strength is simply the fact that it has been held by many as their main search engine for so long. For approximately 70% of the search market Google is king and the majority of search users use Google exclusively. People like familiarity and don’t want to have to use new products unless there is seen to be a significant advantage in changing.

Google’s own rapid growth was due to the better quality results it returned in comparison to other search engines. A significant enough advantage at the time for people to move from Yahoo! and Alta Vista.

Of course this isn’t to say that there isn’t going to be a new service that will provide the extra something to get people to switch but with Google’s ability to keep improving and expand their services is going to make toppling them from top spot so much more difficult. Google just doesn’t ignore new ideas online and if they feel they are lacking in a specific area they will come up with their own slant on it. I’m not just talking a copy here but taking the idea and trying to beat the originator at their own game.

It’s therefore difficult for a new upstart to grab too much of Google’s market.

The biggest danger for Google is actually losing the very quality of service that attracted users in the first place. Google results are reportedly deteriorating with more spam and manipulating sites floating to the top. Google run a constant battle of stopping websites employing new techniques to lift their position. In this way Google is a victim of it’s own success - a high position in Google is worth a lot of money to companies and they will certainly try all sorts of new ways to elevate their status.

So it’s all in Google’s hands. They are fighting a battle for control of their own results with increasing difficult tactics to detect such as a new take on link exchanges - the three way link exchange. They have to harden their algorithm to be more difficult to manipulate by adding variables that people just can’t imitate.

If Google keeps their eye on the ball there will be no reason for people to switch services and their future dominance is assured. People’s familiarity with Google will keep them on board.

It seems Microsoft have come up with an idea that they hope might help them close some ground on Google on search share.

Obviously this isn’t going to happen overnight but if they can implement a system that returns better quality or is less corrupable than Google PageRank then at least they stand a better chance at attracting new users. We do of course have to bare in mind that the lead is currently huge and Google doesn’t stand still so I’d definitely stop short of saying this was a Google killer.

So what’s this fuss about then? Well Google’s success is built on PageRank- essentially a measure of website popularity by incoming links to a website. This popularity when coupled with relevancy can give a good indication of the importance of a website and therefore help rank it accurately. Now it isn’t quite that simple anymore - Google have added much to their algorithm to avoid easy interference by people trying to manipulate the index e.g. using link farms.

Microsoft are touting a system called BrowseRank which effectively takes a user’s browsing habits into account when working out importance. In other words the websites you visit regularly, the time you send on the site etc.

This is great from the perspective of search results and a hell of a lot more difficult to manipulate than current algorithms. Perhaps search engine optimisation would be come just that “optimisation” or maybe some companies would spend money on overall online marketing rather than just spending huge amounts of their budget just on SEO.

Who knows where we will be in a few years time but it’s the first real search idea I’ve seen come out from Microsoft that I’ve thought has real potential. I’m uneasy at Google’s current dominance in the search market and hope that the market becomes more open in the future (Microsoft or any other company).

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.