Skip to content
Gravity Search Marketing
  • Why Gravity
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Contact Us

SEO for Adobe Edge Animate [Updated]

  • November 24, 2012
  • by Gradiva Couzin

Adobe Edge Animate is a new platform (in “preview” mode) that allows developers to create Flash-like user experiences including animation built with HTML 5 rather than Flash.

This bodes well for cross-platform compatibility (*cough*iPad*cough*), but what are the SEO implications?  Can Google adequately crawl content that is placed on a page with Adobe Edge Animate?  We set out to answer these questions by looking at two test pages created with Adobe Edge Animate:

  • Adobe Edge SEO Test One
  • Adobe Edge Animate SEO Test Two 

When we first looked at the Adobe Edge preview in May 2012, we did not see any promising SEO advantages to using Edge over Flash, as the content generated was not search-engine-crawlable.  As of November, 2012, Adobe has updated Edge to include multiple tools & services whilst renaming the main component from “Edge Preview” to “Edge Animate” to go along with other tools in the Suite: Reflow, Code, Inspect, and Web Fonts.

The other tools aid in the development process; for this blog post, we are focused on the SEO implications of Edge Animate.

Since last previewing Adobe Edge in early 2012, we are now seeing a promising new feature in the latest builds: “Publish Content as Static HTML”

When this option is selected, Adobe emits “HTML markup for SEO friendliness.”

In early 2012, we noticed that Google would not crawl the content from Adobe Edge which is housed in JavaScript. The HTML code you get from the default publish option in Adobe Edge is the following:

As a workaround we entered in some alternate text (with and without noscript tags) and Google was able to crawl both. View the source and snippet  in Test Example One to see how this came out.

Now, as of November 2012, our previously workaround is no longer necessary.  Instead, you can use the “Publish Content as Static HTML” feature in Edge Animate. When this is enabled, Adobe renders the readable text as HTML elements for SEO friendliness, like this truncated example below:

You can view the source in Test Two to see how it fully renders the HTML content. Test One and Test Two use the same source file from Edge Animate, the only difference is selecting the Publish Static HTML option.

With this new option, Google can crawl the Adobe Edge content; and with that, this new platform is shaping up to be a promising SEO-friendly replacement to Flash.

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Ask the Experts: Are These Consumer Rating Tools Helpful for SEO?
How to Get Author Thumbnail Photos in Google Search Results
3 COMMENTS
  • NWdev
    November 23, 2012 at 10:35 am

    So apparently nothing learned in nearly 6 months?
    What is the impact of the fact that most of the animation content is in the *.js files?
    Seems that there’s a paucity of info out on edge’s ability to provide content that is rankable (searchable by the bots).
    BTW I do use edge, great for animation, but if the animation is the main content on the page seems you can forget using it for call-to-action landing pages that rank high. Of course I could be missing something too.
    Just wish it worked better in this regard.

    1. Gradiva Couzin
      November 26, 2012 at 11:54 am

      Updated! Thanks for calling us out 🙂 The good news is that the newest build offers much-improved search friendliness.

  • Andre
    October 30, 2013 at 5:41 am

    For me it is still very poor in regards to the SEO. I have done a few banners and homepage marquees. Even when publishing as static html what I get is just the readable text – what about images used in the composition? what about hyperlink? – Hyperlink are very important. Google can crawl other pages and they are not available in Edge Animate Static Publish option. Hopefully this will change soon!

Comments are closed.

Who We Are
Gravity Search Marketing was formed in 2006 as a partnership between Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin. Gravity’s clients include Fortune 500 companies, global entertainment brands, niche B2Bs, large and small retailers, and non-profits.
As SEO industry veterans, Couzin and Grappone co-wrote Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day (Wiley, 2006, 2008, 2011) and Five Stars: Putting Online Reviews to Work for Your Business (Wiley, 2014), and enjoy sharing their expertise in speaking engagements and press interviews. 
Gravity's small, talented team has expertise in analytics, paid search, social media and technical SEO. Gravity team members are located throughout California, in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Get in Touch

Get An Effective SEO Strategy

Most of our business comes through word of mouth from happy customers. We work with clients who have what it takes to make the project a success: intelligence, openness to new ideas, a commitment to communicating with us regularly, and a workflow that allows us to work with you effectively.

Contact Us
  • Home
  • Why Gravity is Different
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Books We’ve Written
  • Contact Us

Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB)

Gravity is an SBA-Certified WOSB

NAICS Codes:

  • 541613 Marketing Consulting Services
  • 541810 Advertising Agencies
  • 541820 Public relations agencies
  • 541990 Other Professional Services
  • 611430 Professional and Management Training
Gravity Search Marketing LLC - A Full-Service SEO Company
Los Angeles • San Francisco
Copyright © 2020 All Rights Reserved
Theme by Colorlib Powered by WordPress