"HS_text" from swf files in SERPs - what is it, and how can I change it?

[CSS_Kidd]

I appologize for putting this post here but I am not sure what section to put this question in. SEO? Flash? HTML? < moderator note - this post was moved from another location >

The problem is I can not figure out where this issue is coming from.

Upon checking indexed urls in one of my sites I noticed that my .swf files (virtual tours) are indexed with all of them having the title HS_text HS_text and with the description being the same. Not only that but HS_text happens to be one of my top search queries for this site.

I believe I fixed my search issue by disallowing the containing directory in my robots.txt file:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /tours/

*If I am incorrect about this, please let me know.

My real question is this:
Where does this text come from? I messed around in flash and could not find anything that would give me the option to change this. Keep in mind, I am no whiz at Flash. None of these files have .html files calling them. And they do not have this text within the page on the site that contains them.

Anyone have any idea?

Do a Google search for HS_text and all you will mostly get as a result are .swf files.

[edited by: tedster at 8:49 pm (utc) on Mar 31, 2010]

[rocknbil]

Looks like the idea that G can index Flash has an interesting side effect. They're not even talking about it at Adobe that I can see, and it's in one of their demos too - look at this search: HS_text site:adobe.com [google.com]

Maybe you can track down the page that .swf is on, see what version and elements it's using, figure out what it's related to. I found nothing in the CS3 help files, it appears to be some internally generated element in the code Google is extracting, but it's not in all files. Or you could email Adobe support (G.L. on that one . . . )

I just did some site:... searches for HS_text on a few sites of mine using Flash. These vary from video to slide shows to animations, some using imported XML, but none of them use externally imported text files, and all of them were developed using CS3. Some AS3, mostly coded to AS2. They do not use any pre-packaged modules/classes. That should at least eliminate those possibilities.

I'd guess a particular method or module/class, or something that came up in CS4, or we'd have heard about it already.

As for disallowing /tours, if you don't want any of those pages/files indexed, guess that's okay . . . seems like there should be a way to disallow just the term, but I've never really looked into that. A better approach might be to disallow indexing of .swf?

[CSS_Kidd]

Update: I have sent Adobe an email questioning this topic a week ago, and I have yet to get a response.

[CSS_Kidd]

Problem Solved! This was so easy it was stupid!

First I stopped using "HS_text" in my search to find a solution to this. Instead I used ".swf indexed title" and ".swf metadata" and BAM! Results!

Ok here it is:
If you have the working FLA just enter a title and description in the "Document Properties". Bingo! Generated metadata! Duh!

But if you don't have the .fla file and you only have the .swf, I am not sure. I would assume you could right click the file, select properties, click on the "Summary" tab and enter a title and maybe comments. I am trying this method on .swf files I do not have the .fla for. So I am just waiting for my site to be crawled.

Does anyone know if the latter creates metadata that can be read by bots in order to display a title and description? I can't seem to find an answer to that.

[CSS_Kidd]

I have been researching and testing this issue and came up with a small update for this post.

Update:
Interesting... It seems that when I apply a title and description, the two ways explained above, to the files located in my disallow /tours/ folder (robots.txt), they are no longer indexed.
However, I left a few without a title and description and Google wants to index them with that default HS_text HS_text even if they are in the disallowed /tours/ folder. Interesting quirk. Again, I can’t find any explanation for this.

[edited by: tedster at 4:28 pm (utc) on Mar 31, 2010]
[edit reason] moved from another location [/edit]

[tedster]

Google will often index a URL even though crawling is disallowed. They don't crawl it, so they are respecting robots.txt. But they do find other ways to get some title or description to use in their SERPs, often through backlinks.

[CSS_Kidd]

I am aware of backlinks providing titles and descriptions to disallowed pages/files/folders. And to a greater extent they can cause it to be indexed.
The real mystery here, I think, is why did Google stop indexing the .swf files after I gave them a title and description?

FYI - The .swf files in question (ones with the default HS_text and the ones with the Given title/description) are all located in the same disallowed /tours/ folder.

So is this a coincidence or did Google take a very long time to disallow these files and haven't yet re-crawled the ones that are indexed?

[tedster]

Google is slow right now, but I think you're seeing something more than that. I dig around a little and discovered that most search results for HS_text show a cache link that says "these terms only appear in links pointing to this page."

I'll keep digging - I love a good Google mystery.

[tedster]

You're correct that "HS_text" is a bit of a mystery and hard to research. My best guess right now is that it is an internal code reference to "Hot Spot text" - that is, the Flash parallel to anchor text.