Comments on: How does Google read flash?

By: andrew

andrew — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:19:26 +0000

Martyn,
Usually that error occurs when you haven’t specified the paths correctly. The easiest way to make sure this happens is to copy the swf2html.exe and your test swf files to the same directory and then make sure you switch the command promt to that directory using ‘cd’ (i.e. if you put the files in C:\, make sure the terminal says ‘C:\>’ before you start).
Hope this helps.

By: Martyn Willes

Martyn Willes — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:35:48 +0000

Thanks for this great article and clear instructions. I downloaded the SDK. When I use swf2html.exe (Windows XP platform) to extract text of a .swf it returns an error message saying “swf2html: error: Can’t open file”. I have tried this on a number of .swf files and all return the same error. There is nothing on the Adobe site about this error. Have you come across it and can you tell me what it means?

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:17:03 +0000

This is a really good piece but do you think that Googlebot will ever be able to add the exact same weight to text within Flash like it does for text within, say, a paragraph tag?

By: MIT

MIT — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:20:30 +0000

A very helpful article. Google is trying to become more user friendly with flash. It is in its own best interests.

By: Sam

Sam — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:57:45 +0000

Google is getting better at this – without doubt. But whenever we hear Matt Cutts talk about it, he does go a bit quiet.

But any improvement is definitely welcome.