HTML5 and Google BOT

HTML5 is a form of HTML that all the modern browsers tend to support.Their support is rendering HTML5 with no problems.HTML5 is gathering more and more momentum, and is looking very likely to be, in the near future, the language of choice for developers, replacing Flash.But what about google crawler- Google Bot?

Google does not crawl flash?HTML5 is very good for adding animations to our web pages.Google has not come up with any announcements regarding this but to quote Googler, JohnMu

First he says, In general, our crawlers are used to not being able to parse all HTML markup - be it from broken HTML, embedded XML content or from the new HTML5 tags. Our general strategy is to wait to see how content is marked up on the web in practice and to adapt to that. If we find that more and more content uses HTML5 markup, that this markup can give us additional information, and that it doesn't cause problems if webmasters incorrectly use it (which is always a problem in the beginning), then over time we'll attempt to work that into our algorithms. With that in mind, I definitely wouldn't want to stand in the way of your implementing parts of your site with HTML5, but I also wouldn't expect to see special treatment of your content due to the HTML5 markup at the moment. HTML5 is still very much a work in progress, so it's great to see bleeding-edge sites making use of the new possibilities :)

Second he says, In general, we work hard to understand as much of the web as possible, but I have a feeling that HTML5 markup is not yet as widely in use (and in use correctly) that it would make sense for us to use it as a means of understanding content better. As HTML5 gains in popularity and as we recognize specific markup elements that provide value to our indexing system, this is likely to change, but at the moment I would not assume that you would have an advantage by using HTML5 instead of older variants.

Returning different content to search engine crawlers as you would to similar users would be considered cloaking and against our Webmaster Guidelines. I would not recommend treating search engine crawlers different than you would similar users.

Personally, I would recommend using HTML5 where you think that it already makes sense, perhaps reverting to HTML4 if you can determine that the browser won't support the elements of HTML5 that you use properly. While this will not result in an advantage for your content in our search results, it generally wouldn't be disadvantageous either.

But it remains the same-- If they recognise them it means better semantic value, if they don't it means all they see is a container element with little to no semantic real-estate value in context of the content, which is basically the same as a DIV element.Google is already making use of HTML5 in it's Wave product and in some test case versions of YouTube.

What you say?