One of the biggest stumbling blocks for many small business sites (well, any site, really) when it comes to search engine optimization is the lack of text on their web sites. After all, it's well known among SEO's that search engines cannot read the text in an image. Or can they? Bill Slawski walks us through a few new Google patent filings today that may point to a change in this long standing rule of SEO.

Bill writes:

How easy or difficult is it for a search engine to recognize text within digital images and video, and index that text?

Three new Google patent applications explore that topic, and describe some ways in which Google might try to capture information from text within images.

Capturing Text from Street View Images

This patent filings don’t address text found within headings and logos, but rather much more complex pictures, including street scenes of the kind that might be taken for instance, when filming streets for something like Google’s Street Views (video).

While much of the patent talk focuses on identifying the text within photographs taken of street fronts and shops for services like Google Street Views, it isn't a big stretch to think the engine might be able to port this technology over to graphics on a web site.

If you look at it from the perspective of my Pinocchio Effect theory, it makes perfect sense.

If you're not familiar with the Pinocchio Effect, here's the general idea:

You see, deep down, search engines want nothing more than to be real boys (or girls). That's right, it's that simple. As search engine engineers gain more and more ability to tailor the algorithms, their ultimate goal is to help the search engines make choices the way that people do.

One of the primary things human beings can do when looking at and valuing the content of a web site is to read the text made up of graphic files. I can visit an all graphic or all Flash site and read the content just fine. (Assuming I'm using a browser that will display the images or Flash.) Search engines have long been unable to read any text contained within an image.

If people can read the text and make judgements based off of it, search engine algorithms will naturally be looking to do the same.

According to Bill's post, it looks like Google may be well on the way to getting the technology in place to pull this off.

It's important to note that nearly every example in Bill's post is based more on being able to tie text to photos of store fronts and such than of graphic text blocks on web sites. That means chances are good that we'll see this coming into play in areas like Google Maps, Google Street Views and Image Search before we see Google attempting to actually index any content contained in the graphic text blocks on a web site.

That means you need to continue to make sure you're offering up your site content in a format that both humans and search engines can read. It also means you might want to run outside and make sure the address numbers or your business name's sign aren't crooked.