SEARCHENGINES
Google Removes Rich Media File Best Practices Help Document

Google has deleted and 404ed the Rich media file best practices. Google said removed its “documentation about rich-media files, such as Silverlight and Flash.” Why? This is the best part, Google wrote “turns out it’s not 2005 anymore.”
You can probably briefly see the cached version of the page over here and then use the Wayback machine to look it up when that goes away. But here is a copy and paste of the page:
Rich media file best practices
Google can index most types of pages and files. Here are a few details about some specific rich media types:
General best practices
If you do plan to use rich media on your site, here are some recommendations that can help prevent problems.
- Try to use rich media only where it is needed. We recommend that you use HTML for content and navigation.
- Provide text versions of pages. If you use a non-HTML splash screen on the home page, make sure to include a regular HTML link on that front page to a text-based page where a user (or Googlebot) can navigate throughout your site without the need for rich media.
In general, search engines are text based. This means that in order to be crawled and indexed, your content needs to be in text format.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t include rich media content such as Silverlight or videos on your site; it just means that any content you embed in these files should also be available in text format or it might not be accessible to all search engines. The following examples focus on the most common types of non-text content, but the guidelines are similar for any other types: provide text equivalents for all non-text files. (Also note that Flash is no longer supported.)
This will not only increase Google’s ability to successfully crawl and index your content; it will also make your content more accessible. Many people, for example users with visual impairments, who use screen readers, or have low bandwidth connections, cannot see images on web pages, and providing text equivalents widens your audience.
Video
See video best practices.
IFrames
IFrames are sometimes used to display content on web pages. Content displayed via iFrames may not be indexed and available to appear in Google’s search results. We recommend that you avoid the use of iFrames to display content. If you do include iFrames, make sure to provide additional text-based links to the content they display, so that Google can crawl and index this content.
Flash
Flash is no longer supported. We recommend using a different format, such as HTML5.
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So this is no longer relevant – do you miss Flash or Silverlight? 🙂
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
Microsoft Bing Search Menu Drop Down With Explore & Collect

Microsoft Bing is testing a new search bar interface on image search (I believe) where the search vertical options, such as web, videos, news, etc, are now presented in a drop-down bar and Bing added an “explore” and “collect” option across the bar instead.
This was spotted first by Frank Sandtmann and posted on Mastodon but I am also able to replicate this in Bing Image search. Here is a screenshot that you can click on and enlarge:
This was also spotted by Khushal Bherwani:
🆕 Bing with Explore and Image filters in Image search. pic.twitter.com/ttjenRpfLW
— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) January 23, 2023
Frank wrote, “Today I spotted #Bing displaying a new navigation menu on their image #SERP. Now the usual elements can be accessed after clicking on a dropdown. In addition, two more elements are displayed: “Explore” and “Collect”.”
Do you prefer this interface? I get what Microsoft is trying to do here but to me, I might want to jump back to web results or maybe video results sooner than use explore or collect?
Forum discussion at Mastodon.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Publishes A New SEO Case Study

A couple of weeks after I said I thought Google would stop publishing SEO case studies, Google just published a new one. This one is on How Vimeo improved video SEO for their customers, specifically by using the indexifembedded rule combined with noindex and adding structured data.
As a reminder, recently, Mariachiara Marsella asked John Mueller if Google could add new case studies. John Mueller responded on Mastodon, “I find it quite challenging for us to do these since search is so dynamic.”
So I thought that was it, stick a fork in it, no more SEO case studies from Google. But I suspect as soon as I wrote that piece, Gary went, I’ll show Barry and got a new one written up. Okay, I doubt that happened…
In any event, the new case study says, “Vimeo adopted Google’s new guidance for video players that use iframe embeds. The new indexifembedded rule paired with noindex allows markup to be attributed through embeds. Since applying this and VideoObject markup, Vimeo videos that are embedded on customer pages are eligible for indexing, without customers having to add markup themselves.”
They also used key moments; the case study reads, “To make all Vimeo Chapters eligible to appear as Key Moments on Google Search, Vimeo added Clip markup to all of their video host pages. Vimeo also implemented Seek markup, so if a video doesn’t have Vimeo Chapters, Google can automatically identify Key Moments.”
Anyway, check out the case study if you do any video SEO, it is an interesting one.
Just super interesting that there have been almost no new case studies in about 18 months and now we got a new one…
Forum discussion at Mastodon.
SEARCHENGINES
Generating Fake URLs On Competitors Site Shouldn’t Hurt The Site, Google Says

John Mueller from Google said that bulk-generating fake URLs of your competitor’s site should not lead to negative SEO and ranking issues for that site. “This is not something I’d worry about,” he added.
Mike Blazer asked John, “Bulk generate non-existing URLs on a competitor’s site that lead to 5XX server errors when opened. Googlebot sees that a substantial number of pages on that domain return 5XX, the server is unable to handle requests. Google reduces the page #crawl frequency for that domain.”
John replied on Mastodon saying, “I can’t imagine that having any effect. This is not something I’d worry about.”
Here is a screenshot of this conversation:
Do you agree?
Forum discussion at Mastodon.
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