Companies have begun to phase out Flash in exchange for HTML5 because Apple products don't support Flash, Google cannot index interior pages, some
browsers don't display Flash objects, and Yahoo and Bing struggle to read the content. Search engines like Google go to great lengths to explain the shift.
InboundWriter, which supports content optimization for search engines,
revamped its platform to support HTML5 for tablets and smartphones. The new version bids adieu to Adobe Flash and supports optimization in the writing process for search and social by improving editor
functions with dozens of new format options and support for tighter integration between the user's document library and Topic Buzz, the company's new social sharing monitoring feature.
A couple of Web design and search engine optimization firms -- Vento Solutions, and U.S. SEO -- created a coalition and Web site to inform the public about the war
on Flash and its effects on the Internet. The site chronicles the events that led to the demise of Flash.
Is HTML5 good for search engine optimization and applications? In a post on the
Google Webmaster form, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller explains that Google bots are pretty good at parsing the common kinds of HTML-like markup, including HTML and XHTML. Crawlers
indexing systems don't do anything special for HTML5, so there is no "bonus for using HTML5 constructs," but similarly no downside either.
Mueller suggests focusing on clean markup because
it's much easier to maintain the Web site, and add new elements like microformats. It also typically makes the pages more portable across a variety of browsers and devices.
With that in mind,
he writes, "there's nothing holding you back (from a search point of view) from creating an awesome site in HTML5 :)."
Have a safe July 4.