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Flash vs Wordpress

by n00b
11 replies
Ok fellow warriors, I'm looking for a little bit of help here. I need the pros and cons of a Flash website vs a Wordpress site.

Let me explain where I'm coming from. It seems that a lot of offline businesses are obsessed with having a Flash website. My belief is that, except for in certain cases (photographers come to mind) WP is better. Flash sites can take awhile to load, aren't as seo friendly, and don't convert as well. Yes Flash is flash-y, but do they really improve your bottom line? I believe they don't and that they can actually hurt it.

Am I wrong? If I am, please let me know (and give me reasons, preferably with more support than "because I said so"). Am I right? If so can you please give me reasons and support backing it up.

I would really like to hear your opinions on this and any data or articles that you could point me to.

Thanks!
#flash #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author vagabondette
    I just had this debate with a customer of mine. They have 2 sites. One is HTML the other is flash. One is butt ugly the other is very pretty. Because of the very pretty aspect the woman in charge of the project wanted the new site done in flash. I sat her down and explained the problems associated with flash sites which you outlined (and also added that ongoing maintenance is a problem unless they keep someone on hand to constantly do updates) but she still wanted flash until I showed her the site on my laptop. What was huge and beautiful on her screen was the size of a postage stamp on mine (I have a netbook with a small screen). That sealed the deal for only using a flash header.

    Not sure that my little story will help you or not but consider this a vote on the no flash side. Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author Pat Ordenes
    I have to agree...
    Though these days you CAN add SEO to flash, and without too much difficulty.
    My argument is more from the practical side... updating is not as easy as WP and loading time can be an issue... Considering that a golden rule on irresistible offer is to deliver a message in 3 seconds or so... it may be hard to do on flash...
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  • Profile picture of the author Agent007
    WordPress is very easy to manage and add extra options using plug-ins and themes. Flash elements can easily be added to a WordPress theme, post or page. So I believe you can have the best of both worlds using WordPress and adding Flash to it.
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  • Profile picture of the author mmurtha
    Yeah I love the look and feel of flash sites. BUT, Ihate the hassle of dealing with them all the time. To me, they are not worth all the updating. They may look "pretty" lol, but seriously.

    And to be honest, I don't know that they rank any higher than HTML, PHP, etc ... sites. I know it took a long time before the SEs would even include them in their searches, and then directories didn't want people submiting these sites to them, and so forth.

    They've simply been a bear since day one.
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  • Profile picture of the author ametis
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author Jay Moreno
      Originally Posted by ametis View Post

      Flash is considered as Image, and text inside flash cannot be crawled by Search engine. and also Flash make your site harder to load, You need lot of internet speed enable to load a single flash images.
      FYI...

      Originally Posted by google

      To date, when Google encounters SWF files on the web, we can:
      • Index textual content displayed as a user interacts with the file. We click buttons and enter input, just like a user would.
      • Discover links within Flash files.
      • Load external resources and associate the content with the parent file.
      • Support common JavaScript techniques for embedding Flash, such as SWFObject and SWFObject2.
      • Index sites scripted with AS1 and AS2, even if the ActionScript is obfuscated. Update on June 19, 2009: We index sites with AS3 as well. The ActionScript version isn't particularly relevant in our Indexing process, so we support older versions of AS in addition to the latest.

        For more info see: Google Webmaster Blog
      i find a lot of 100% flash sites unnecessary coded in flash, parts of it yes should/could be flash but for big areas its static anyway and theres no benefits from it being in flash... editing can be a pain too!

      if your familiar with mootools and similar you can get some great aesthetics for your site without using flash

      depending on what your doing i would actually choose joomla
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      • Profile picture of the author Wade Watson
        Because I once ran into a devistating virus attack caused by simply clicking on a website once, I run NoScript in Firefox, which causes Flash sites and sites dominated by Javascript to come up blank. I don't mind enabling Flash for video now and then, but when I run across a whole Flash page, I usually just forget it and move on.

        Flash is not nearly as stable a medium as HTML, anyway. It seems to do different things on different systems, as well as different browsers. I had browser crashes watching Hulu movies. For web design, I'd say there's really no comparison. Use Flash for a feature here and there if you must, but I wouldn't suggest depending upon it. Flash sites are for artists and big companies who get hustled out of big design fees by designers more set on impressing a client than creating an income-producing website.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kael41
    Bah Flash is so 1999, Silverlight is where the discussion should be heading
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  • Profile picture of the author webmatic
    I agree with the sentiment that Flash is outdated by now. It's difficult to work with, and usually sites with Flash are all visually impressive, but have very little substance.
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  • Profile picture of the author bhopkins
    Flash will always perform worse than pretty much any other platform. Unless there is some sort of application functionality which requires something like flash or Silverlight for that matter, I would stay away from it. You can always have small sections of flash content if needed, but the base needs to be something a little more SE friendly.

    my 2 cents

    Bruce
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    Bruce

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  • Profile picture of the author n00b
    Thank you for all your input. This is exactly the type of information I was looking for. You guys are clearly more familiar with it than I am
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  • Profile picture of the author fukinlee
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    • Profile picture of the author George Wright
      Originally Posted by fukinlee View Post

      Flash vs Wordpress? Flash is a file format and wordpress is a blog platform.
      Originally Posted by fukinlee View Post


      What's better, a tennis racket or a tennis ball? The question doesn't make sense.
      Actually the question makes perfect sense and was answered by many in the sense it was asked. It might not make sense to a programmer or a designer but to a marketer it really does make a lot of sense.

      As far as what's better a racket or a tennis ball, again it depends on who you ask. To a dog lover who plays go fetch with his dog a tennis ball is better. To a poor guy being attacked by a pit bull a tennis racket is better.

      George Wright
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      "The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book." Mickey Spillane
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