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Flash?

by Tony Wagner
6 replies
Will a flash presentation on a website hinder SEO efforts or is it websites built in flash the problem?

Thanks in advance,
Tony
#flash
  • Profile picture of the author stealthpromo
    A website built in flash is the problem. A few flash bits wont hurt ya.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tony Wagner
    Thanks so flash in my header wouldn't hurt?
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  • Profile picture of the author Dexx
    Flash isn't something gets you "penalized," its the fact that the search engines have no idea what is INSIDE the flash code that leads to zero results for SERP stuff.

    So yes, an entire flash-site = bad, but some flash to make it "pretty" is okay...though keep in mind many mobile devices (like iPhones) cant even SEE flash...so you must know your audience before you make your site a pain to visit.
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    • Profile picture of the author Krieger
      Originally Posted by Dexx View Post

      Flash isn't something gets you "penalized," its the fact that the search engines have no idea what is INSIDE the flash code that leads to zero results for SERP stuff.
      Not accurate:
      "Googlebot can index almost any text a user can see as they interact with any Flash SWF file on your site, and can use that text to generate a snippet or match query terms in Google searches."
      http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?

      That said, there are caveats outlined at the link above and what applies to Google may not apply to other search engines.

      Also what was said about mobile devices is true and also applies to other cases, e.g. screen readers for visually impaired. In all, I would use Flash as sparingly as possible. Even just for eye candy - explore HTML5 and CSS3, there are some amazing things you can do w/o relying on 3rd-party plugins like Flash.
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  • Profile picture of the author Quentin
    When you make your flash header also give it a good name.

    So for example don't just call it header.

    For example my flash header is called mobile-website-marketing.swf

    Quentin
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  • Profile picture of the author Victor
    I've probably preached this one too many times now, but make use of dynamically loading information into flash via XML. The XML files will be read by the search engines.
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