Optimizing Flash for Search Engines: The Practicality Beyond the Hype

For All Those Flash Lovers. :specs:

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In September 2004, the search engine marketing industry was abuzz about Google finally having the ability to index Flash content. Macromedia’s Software Development Kit (SDK) had made it possible for search engines to convert Flash files into HTML, thereby enabling crawlers to index the content and links embedded within the files.

But how new was this news? This topic has a history. At the Search Engine Strategies Conference held in Boston in March 2003, the search engine FAST claimed it had the ability to index and follow links embedded in Flash. At that time Google claimed that their spider could also follow such links. Suddenly, a year-and-a-half later, the subject was hotter than ever due to the discovery of a file type indication of [FLASH] in Google’s results.

Less than Ideal
While Macromedia’s SDK makes it possible for a search engine to index a Flash file’s content, the format is less than ideal. The common elements for an HTML file are missing. In Google, the content of an HTML page’s title tag becomes the search engine’s results link. For a Flash file, the first words of the file’s content generate the content of the search engine result’s link, which can look particularly odd if it is a list of unrelated words. Seeing this kind of result, a user may have no idea of the subject/theme/content of your Flash file, and may choose not to access it.

http://www.imakenews.com/iprospect/e...8p4C5,b2dQyDkk

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The problem with this is that if you have a highly flash intensive site, the chances are that a lot of surfers wont actually be able to view it anyway and, if you have a HTML version of a flash enabled site, that is going to be BETTER for your SE rankings than a single flash site alone.

You could always just call your flash file keyword.swf if you are really that bothered about it though ;)

Good article find Andy :thumbsup:

Regards,

Lee

The other point most people miss is that most of the world still operates on dial-up, in fact, most of the world still doesn't have Internet access, but that's another matter.

But about Flash, who cares if it's indexable or not. I have worked as a web designer working on corporate, non-adult contracts. Time and again, I had clients say, 'No Flash, we don't want Flash.' In fact, in five whole years, I've only had one client say, 'I want Flash.'

Flash certainly has it's applications in the gaming, entertainment, and presentation world, but if you're using Flash to any degree on your site, you might as well just send me a blank cheque and tell me what you're bank balance is, or perhaps just run really fast and repeatedly into a brick wall.

Dzinerbear