In the company's Webmaster Central Blog, Google announced that "Flash content will be ignored in Web pages" and that "Google Search will stop indexing standalone SWF files."
It means that searches for Flash content will come up empty, and websites that rely heavily on Flash will have to shift onto other formats.
This move is a small part of a roadmap in preparation for Flash's end-of-life.
Tech Giants' Flash Roadmap
In 2017, Adobe announced that it would stop updating and distributing Flash Player at the end of 2020 to give way to newer open formats like HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly. Following this announcement, browser makers like Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google laid out their plans to sunset Flash.
Most of the tech giants took one step at a time, gradually taking steps to handle the plug-in's demise. They started by limiting the use of flash on websites. Almost a year after, the click-to-run functionality became available.
As of now, browsers default to a disabled Flash state. Permission from the user is required for the player software to work. In some, users have to enable Flash capabilities on a site-by-site basis.
At the end of 2020, all Flash capabilities from all browsers will be scrubbed off.
Flash's Downfall
In the early 2000s, Flash paved the way to more interactive content on the Web. Videos, games, and animations became possible through innovative formats like Flash. Content creators and creative users rejoiced the end of the static web. Moreover, it inspired the development of newer formats that became open standards across the web.
However, as the open standards mature and evolve, their capabilities and functionalities that were once provided by plugins are now directly integrated into browsers. As a result, Flash became less and less relevant.
In 2010, Steve Jobs released an open letter titled "Thoughts on Flash." He enumerated six reasons as to why Apple does not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods, and iPads. In his statement, Flash being "closed and proprietary, having major technological drawbacks and not supporting touch-based devices" contributed to Apple's decision to exclude Flash in its mobile devices.
Apple was the first to strip out-of-date versions of Flash from its browser Safari in 2012.
These maneuvers accelerated the eventual downfall of the player software.
Impact
The termination of Flash indexing in Google Search will have little repercussions. Most users will not feel any impact from this change.
A study comparing the usage statistics of Javascript and Flash for websites found that only 3.0% of websites use Flash. For the top 1,000 websites, however, the percentage increased to 8.4%. As for market position, Flash is ranked second to Java in terms of popularity and traffic.
Looking ahead
Without a doubt, Flash inspired the whole web. Now, it is time to pass their legacy on to other web standards. Adobe promised to remain at the "forefront of the development of new web standards and actively participate in their advancement." They will continue to participate in the WebAssembly Community Group and contribute to the HTML5 standard.
