[Juk]

about sites that are entirely in flash.

My opinion is that when a site is entirely in flash the best you can hope to implement SEO-wise is build links and use noembed tag. and you can build a text only version.

now, i say the seo friendly way means that the text only version is what could rank and be found, in which case the visitor has to click to view the flash version.

a techie is insisting that he can use JS to kick in the flash. I say this is presenting different content to the search engines and visitor but techie guy argues technically it isnt because if JS or flash is not enabled on the humans machine they will get the text version. (not that i would want to spend 12 months debating that with Google in the reinclusion requests!)

i think im right (isnt there a black hat term for the technique above?)....or have there been some developments i dont know about? happy for someone to tell me otherwise

[Naikiss]

I am not an expert on SEO and Flash, but what you're describing does seem that it may get nailed for cloaking...

I am sure there is a way, we just don't work with Flash here.... for web dev or for SEO purposes....

[Epox]

All flash is no good for anything except for looks. It will not help you in the long run, so just stay away!

[Angel]

the latest versions of Flash have a software developers kit (SDK) that allows the site to present text to the spiders.

[Naikiss]

I think your techie might be right. I read a thing about a javascript called "SWFObject.js" a while ago. You basically code the page as you normally would for a regular XHTML site, and include the script. If the browsers have javascript and flash, they get the flash version. If they have either turned off, they get the regular version. Never used it myself, but you can download the script for free from somewhere.

I can see where your worries come from, but Im pretty sure Google are OK with it. I've seen it used on a lot of sites. The most high profile I can remember off the top of my head is http://www.ftv.com

[Epox]

If you're still not convinced Juk, Adobe seem to be backing it:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/swfobject_print.html

[Slam]

[Angel]

bump,

flash can not be scanned,
crawled the way the spiders are designed to collect their data.

Try this, make an html version of your flash site.,
make sure the link to the html site is in the top
of your flash site as an option to your users and the engines.

This should keep you in the game.

[Naikiss]

There are flash sites that rank well but they seem to be developed by those who have an ability to combine SEO with Flash.

[Juk]

hey thanks for all the replies (been on hols sorry for delay)

it is swfobject and we are gonna suck it and see

cheers,

[Slam]

Epox

I dont think I am being harse. The only reason I think this is because everyone that I have run across with full flash sites have no ranking and the designer has screwed them in every way possible to get their site up in any search engine. If you are good and can have flash and be SEO friendly, then good for you, I applaud you. I just dont like the developers that just do websites that look good but have no functionality or way to get the site ranked properly.

[Epox]

I agree with you in most ways overdrive, I too detest designers who like to stick a flashing homer simpson animation in the header of every page and have ridiculous mouseover effects simply because they spent about half an hour learning how to use flash.

I possibly misunderstood you when you said "All Flash is no good". I took this to mean that all things flash were no good, but realise now that you could have meant sites that were all flash are no good.
From an SEO point of view, this may have some validity, although the aforementioned SWFOBject does seem to take care of that if you're willing to put in the effort and basically make two versions of the same website. However, even those sites that are 100% flash are generally constructed by people who are designers and either don't know about SEO or frankly don't care.

I personally still posit myself firmly on the design side of things, and I much prefer sites that have'nt taken an SEO battering and lost any aesthetic beauty it once had. Sure, make the site accessible, compliant, semantic and use good copywriting. That is optimizing what you already have and are happy with to give it a better chance of being found. Everything else that we all do on a day to day basis isn't optimisation, it's engineering, it really is not essential for the functionality of the site. And without even giving search engines a thought, if you truly do build something worth while or simply gob-smackingly beautiful, I believe it will eventually get the recognition it deserves.