Those with even a cursory knowledge of search know that words, not images, drive the results users find on Google and Yahoo. That limitation has uniformly disenfranchised image-heavy websites, particularly those that rely on Flash, Adobe's multimedia technology. But that could soon change with news that Adobe has partnered with Google and Yahoo to make Flash searchable.

To make Flash searchable, Adobe will allow Google and Yahoo to look inside SWF files, the format that supports Flash.

"End users will be getting more accurate search results because there's a lot of information in SWF files that will now be fully indexed, including more information in Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)," Justin Everett-Church, senior product manager for Adobe Flash Player, told The New York Times.

While the change will certainly benefit users, it won't burden publishers. According to Adobe, content producers won't need to enable any special functions as long as they're using a SWF file.

However, TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld pointed out that publishers shouldn't expect Flash-heavy sites to jump to the top of the rankings because both Google and Yahoo rely so much on the power of linking.

"Until Adobe makes it easy for the average webmaster or blogger to link deeply into those Flash files, they are not likely to appear at the top of many search results," Schonfeld wrote.

John Battelle, who runs Federated Media, also called the development a "big deal," but pointed out that it does raise at least one serious question for Google and Yahoo: "How will Flash files be ranked?"

One interesting footnote to an otherwise major development in the world of search is that Microsoft has been decidedly absent from this story. Microsoft has been a longtime competitor of Adobe and its Silverlight product has been dubbed a Flash killer.