After Chrome partially supported Flash, the company decided to stop indexing Flash content pages on the web with Google Search, making it much harder to find.
Adobe's timetable for ending Flash support is just one year. So Google has decided to reduce the viewing of Flash content in Chrome since December of 2020.
In an update to webmasters blog, Google says it will stop supporting Flash "later this year". Google Search will "ignore" Flash content on web pages. It will also stop indexing standalone SWF (Shockwave Flash) files.
"Most users and websites will not see any of this change," said Dong-Hwi Lee, Google's engineering manager.
Adobe launched Flash in 1996, a year before Google launched it. According to Search Engine Land, Google began indexing Flash files on 2008, prompting developers and designers to create animations, games, and more.
Of course, now with the stop indexing of Flash content web pages by Google Search, it gives managers an extra incentive to stop using Flash and to use HTML5 technologies that support all modern browsers.
Google disables Flash in Chrome by default from its release Chrome 76 last July. Microsoft also stops supporting Flash in the Edge browser that uses Chromium. Mozilla also turned it off by default Flash on Firefox 69 last September.
