Google Now Spiders Flash!

[BossWebmaster]

Google Now Crawling and Indexing Flash Content

So that's it, now you SEOs can't complain that "Flash is useless", or it hurts your seo. Google now reads text and links in flash. I am already planning to completely redesign my business website in flash. It's about stinking time adobe! I'm not sure what they were waiting for, they recognized it as an issue a long time ago.

This is a great day for Flash designers, not a good day for normal web designers who just had the bar raised several notches.

[kgun]

Already Google Now Crawling and Indexing Flash Content here.

[naz]

Don't forget that completely changing your site like that will adversly affect your search engine rankings. I would find a way to make the change gradually.

[incrediblehelp]

old news, but youll never see more Flash websites out ranking a HTML website, that will be the day.

[nullvariable]

not to mention that many people I know browse the web with flash disabled. I think flash is a waste for anything that can be done any other way. So many flash animations I see are unnecessary, load slow or provide no value at all. So I would be quite careful about how I used it. and Jaan is quite right.

[nullvariable]

here is an example of a website that is done in flash...and truly sucks! I bet they have real trouble ranking on google.

http://www.crumplerbags.com/

just watch how many times it loads...and how long it takes...

[BossWebmaster]

Originally Posted by nullvariable

here is an example of a website that is done in flash...and truly sucks! I bet they have real trouble ranking on google.

http://www.crumplerbags.com/

just watch how many times it loads...and how long it takes...

Ok I'm pretty sure that is supposed to be humorous...

And flash is one of the most useful programs on the web! Virtually all widgets are made in flash. I've seen a wordprocessor made in flash, and image editing alternative to photoshop in flash, virtually all web video is embedded using (drum-roll) ...FLASH! So Mister "Flash rarely adds anything useful" why don't you go write some html or something.

Last statistic I heard was 98% of computers use flash, I read it here:
World Wide Web - Adobe Joins with Google, Yahoo to Search Flash Files

I'm about to just give up on arguing this, some of you have made up so many excuses to yourself and your clients why Flash is a miserable failure and will never amount to anything, you'll never come out of your fantasy land. When in realty it's hard to find a professional website for a major national/international company that doesn't use flash in some form or fashion.

[nullvariable]

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

Ok I'm pretty sure that is supposed to be humorous...

Did you even go to that site? Seriously, (http://www.crumplerbags.com/) that has to be the worst site on the WWW.

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

And flash is one of the most useful programs on the web! Virtually all widgets are made in flash. I've seen a wordprocessor made in flash, and image editing alternative to photoshop in flash, virtually all web video is embedded using (drum-roll) ...FLASH! So Mister "Flash rarely adds anything useful" why don't you go write some html or something.

So the fact that a JavaScript based word processor loads 100x faster you'd still rather use Flash? I'm not talking about video. I'm talking about things like navigation or actual content. I'm not talking about writing unique programs in flash, I'm talking about using it to make annoying ads that yell at you. I'm talking about using it where XHTML and a little Javascript can do the same thing. Flash is over hyped by many for sure.

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

Last statistic I heard was 98% of computers use flash, I read it here:
World Wide Web - Adobe Joins with Google, Yahoo to Search Flash Files

I'm about to just give up on arguing this, some of you have made up so many excuses to yourself and your clients why Flash is a miserable failure and will never amount to anything, you'll never come out of your fantasy land. When in realty it's hard to find a professional website for a major national/international company that doesn't use flash in some form or fashion.

I didn't say people didn't have it installed, I said they surf with it disabled...because of retarded flash ads that yell at you. I don't believe its a failure. I believe its abused and used in places where it shouldn't be. When flash meets my clients needs in a way that nothing else will, then I will use flash. If I had a client that wants a streaming audio or video application, the first place I would start is flash. If I had a client that wanted some really sweet graphics I would start with Jquery, CSS and XHTML.

[BossWebmaster]

Originally Posted by nullvariable

I didn't say people didn't have it installed, I said they surf with it disabled...because of retarded flash ads that yell at you. I don't believe its a failure. I believe its abused and used in places where it shouldn't be. When flash meets my clients needs in a way that nothing else will, then I will use flash. If I had a client that wants a streaming audio or video application, the first place I would start is flash. If I had a client that wanted some really sweet graphics I would start with Jquery, CSS and XHTML.

I've never met anyone in real life that turns off flash. The only people I've met that turn it off were SEO people on here using it as a reason to not use flash. I've never had a client complain about their viewers not seeing the flash content because it was turned off. I've never met ANYONE in the real world that turns it off, and I've been in this industry professionally for 7 years now.

And if a flash based word processor is so inferior, how come Adobe bought it? Adobe buys Web word processor Buzzword - CNET News.com

[nullvariable]

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

I've never met anyone in real life that turns off flash. The only people I've met that turn it off were SEO people on here using it as a reason to not use flash. I've never had a client complain about their viewers not seeing the flash content because it was turned off. I've never met ANYONE in the real world that turns it off, and I've been in this industry professionally for 7 years now.

And if a flash based word processor is so inferior, how come Adobe bought it? Adobe buys Web word processor Buzzword - CNET News.com

Yes, and how many flops has Microsoft produced from companies they've bought? You must not meet very many people, according to the stats on the Flashblock plugin here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433 more than 140,000 people download this plugin every week! More than 2.7 million total downloads. That's a lot of people!!! I don't think there are 140k seos out there, maybe 40k. Are you sure you want to eliminate that many people because you want a pretty navigation widget in flash? Again, flash has its purpose, if I want to develop an application that is graphics intensive (a game, streaming multimedia etc) but its really really annoying when its used for just about anything else TO me. I also like how the article that you point to as saying 98% of computers have flash gives no proof or source for this number. They don't say Adobe claims it, they don't point to a survey or anything which makes me think they pulled the number out of someones ASS.

[BossWebmaster]

Originally Posted by nullvariable

Yes, and how many flops has Microsoft produced from companies they've bought? You must not meet very many people, according to the stats on the Flashblock plugin here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433 more than 140,000 people download this plugin every week! More than 2.7 million total downloads. That's a lot of people!!! I don't think there are 140k seos out there, maybe 40k. Are you sure you want to eliminate that many people because you want a pretty navigation widget in flash? Again, flash has its purpose, if I want to develop an application that is graphics intensive (a game, streaming multimedia etc) but its really really annoying when its used for just about anything else TO me. I also like how the article that you point to as saying 98% of computers have flash gives no proof or source for this number. They don't say Adobe claims it, they don't point to a survey or anything which makes me think they pulled the number out of someones ASS.

Well, thank you for throwing that number out there, and thank you for making it so obnoxiously large and red.

According to United States Internet Usage, Broadband and Telecommunications Reports there are 218,302,574 people who use the internet.

For the sake of argument lets assume none of your 2.7 million are people downloading to install on more than one computer, and all of them are actually using the plugin. That's like what? A little over 1%?

[amxfan]

Taken from Wiki.

Adobe Flash (previously called Shockwave Flash and Macromedia Flash) is a set of multimedia technologies developed and distributed by Adobe Systems and earlier by Macromedia. Since its introduction in 1996, Flash technology has become a popular method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages; Flash is commonly used to create animation, advertisements, and various web page components, to integrate video into web pages, and, more recently, to develop rich Internet applications.

lets break this down

1. Flash technology has become a popular method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages.
2. Flash is commonly used to create animation, advertisements, and various web page components.
3. to integrate video into web pages.


In short it was intended to enhance a page and add a way for people to create movie like animations and interactivity. Before flash the only animations where .gifs and the only real interactivity was created with java scripts. It was never intended for people to create entire web pages using only flash. It was never intended to replace html, php, .asp etc. It was only intended to enhance them.


My .02

[kgun]

Originally Posted by amxfan

It was only intended to enhance them.

Every tool can be taken to the extreme (and misused )

[amxfan]

Originally Posted by kgun

Every tool can be taken to the extreme (and misused )

I'm not sure if I would say extreme use or even misuse. I'm more geared to say 'use the right tool for the right job' as many of the pages I see done in flash could have been done by other means that would lead to a better surfing experience for the visitors and also in some cases better ranking.

[BossWebmaster]

I thought I would take this moment to post a few pages that are entirely(or mostly) in flash that work nicely, since no one seems to know of any:

Win a home from T-mobile | T-Mobile at Home

https://buzzword.acrobat.com

Adobe TV

2Advanced v5 - Attractor

Splashup (front page isn't flash)

[nullvariable]

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

I thought I would take this moment to post a few pages that are entirely(or mostly) in flash that work nicely, since no one seems to know of any:

Win a home from T-mobile | T-Mobile at Home

• This page offers no alternate content.
• Searches for "win a home" "tmobile win a home" do not link to this page (within top 2 results pages)
• Absolutely nothing that is being done on this page needs to be done in flash. It could all be done using JavaScript
• Page also fails to validate according to WC3 standards

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

https://buzzword.acrobat.com

• This site actually gets top two results in Google for "buzzword"
• While obviously it doesn't work well to have alternate content for this site they do at least give me an error message if I turn JavaScript off.
• Page fails to validate to WC3 Standards
• This site isn't a misuse of flash, its a unique web application. Not a website with all of its content hidden away inside flash

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

Adobe TV

• Page requires more than 60 seconds to load the actual content.
• First video is labeled with the key words "preflighting graphic elements" Google returns no results for this term pointing to this site, nor even with the added keywords "adobe" or "tv" or "adobe tv"
• While I wouldn't build the display of the videos in flash, video is a great use of flash. Youtube uses flash to stream videos, but not to display them to you.
• Also fails WC3 validation standards

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

2Advanced v5 - Attractor

• only offers alternate content asking me to install flash
• fails to rank for keywords at the top of the page "progressive design technology"
• clicking on almost any link requires a wait of more than 8 seconds, the design standard for not losing customers.
• This site looks great, but it makes the content hard to get to
• This key phrase "v.5 extra attractor" appears on all the pages I visited however they fail to rank in the top 2 pages for this phrase, instead a press release article site naming this phrase shows up. I would bet big money on this showing up if it weren't in flash
• None of the transitions here add value, most if not all of the fancy shutters and slides and such could be done quite easily with Jquery.
• Once again fails to meet WC3 validation standards

Originally Posted by =BossWebmaster

Splashup (front page isn't flash)

• there's a reason the front page isn't in flash the content wouldn't index or rank well if it wasn't
• again, this is a unique web application, not a site full of content crammed inside flash

Nice sites, but still doesn't fix the problem with designing sites in flash. What happens when a user with a disability visits one of these sites? There's no way for them at present to access these pages with a screen reader, no way for them to increase the text size. Things that can be done easily for any non-flash page. What happens when a search engine indexes these pages? Google might be crawling flash but it sure isn't doing a very good job of it. Most of these sites could rank a lot better even if all they did was offer more alternate content. I'll still offer my clients flash design services but I will always push to keep that content to a minimum and use it for unique applications where other solutions fail. I'll also always take advantage of alternate content blocks to ensure that any links and content in flash are easily accessible to both users and search engines.

[mtheory]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

old news, but youll never see more Flash websites out ranking a HTML website, that will be the day.

Fkash sites can and do outrank html sites all the time.

branford ct web design - Google Search

ct portrait photographer - Google Search

[incrediblehelp]

Sure, but are those seriously competitive keywords?

[BossWebmaster]

competitive searches with all flash sites ranking #1:

star wars

cadillac

hummer

[incrediblehelp]

Clearly no one is getting my point. Flash websites currently will not rank for more keywords and higher competitive keywords. Your showing me some nice rankings but dont you realize the other 9 positions are taken by HTML based websites?

Show me a Flash website that "owns" a set of rankings. We can all find Flash websites that have 1-2-3 high rankings.

[mtheory]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Clearly no one is getting my point. Flash websites currently will not rank for more keywords and higher competitive keywords. Your showing me some nice rankings but dont you realize the other 9 positions are taken by HTML based websites?

Show me a Flash website that "owns" a set of rankings. We can all find Flash websites that have 1-2-3 high rankings.

There are by far more html based sites than Flash and the fact that more html sites rank than Flash is simply a statitistical reality whereas your interpertation of the numbers to determime the se effectiveness of Flash websites is not true but merely a statistical rationalization with a skewed application.

[spiderbait]

I agree with pretty much all of the comments regarding the overuse and abuse of flash. I believe that flash is a very useful tool in the web developer's toolkit, but to continue the analogy, it's like the old maxim about tools. If all you have in your toolkit is a hammer, then every problem begins to look like a nail.

So, I think it's true that a lot of flash developers become overly enamoured with their flash capabilities and begin to think that everything should be solved with flash.

Frankly, I don't think that's wise. But hey, if it works for them and their clients, then good for them.

I do have to take issue with one of nullvariable's comments though, sorry.

Originally Posted by nullvariable

Seriously, (http://www.crumplerbags.com/) that has to be the worst site on the WWW

I just don't feel this is fair. Or accurate.

For one thing, I've definitely seen worse sites (isn't there a "worst sites" thread here somewhere?).

For another, it's actually very clever, original and entertaining. There's so much interactive content embedded in their site that you could mess around with it for a long time (I just did).

Now, I'm not saying a site like theirs is a good idea for anyone else, but it seems to be the right choice for them. Crumpler Bags has always had a unique approach to marketing (they once promoted their products by offering to accept beer as payment).

They have a unique product (messenger bags) that's being sold to a unique and distinct clientele (At least I certainly hope so, since I can't imagine a lot of other market demographics that would find poop sounds entertaining embedded on an eCommerce site). If they're able to reach their market with a website like this and it works for them, who are we to tell them that their site is bad?

And given the reach of their brand name, I don't think they care much about search engine rankings either. They rank for their brand name and maybe that's all they care about.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth.

[BossWebmaster]

@ mtheory - I 100% agree

@ spiderbait - I agree with you also

I guess for the record I should say that I have never made a site in 100% flash, but I am planning one currently. Using the correct techniques where URL variables take you to different parts of the flash file that are loaded from external sources, and I will submit a sitemap with these dynamically loaded sections so they get spidered as different pages. Then I will build an extensive SEO link building campaign and see what kind of rankings I get.

You know, another reason using flash is going to hinder SEO less and less because SE's are starting to rely much heavier on IBL's than ever before.

[spiderbait]

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

I guess for the record I should say that I have never made a site in 100% flash, but I am planning one currently. Using the correct techniques where URL variables take you to different parts of the flash file that are loaded from external sources, and I will submit a sitemap with these dynamically loaded sections so they get spidered as different pages. Then I will build an extensive SEO link building campaign and see what kind of rankings I get.

I hope you'll post info about this site you're planning. I'd be interested to know more about how you build it and how it performs.

Perhaps a dedicated thread? I think a lot of people would be interested.

[guppyman]

To me flash is overhyped. It loads way too slowly and page don't rank well.

[joshjones]

I think this is great news for everyone who searches... the point of search engines is to find the most relevant content on the web, so from a users perspective, this is good news. Nike.com, gucci.com, many others use full flash based systems, and if you want good searches, then it should include all technologies...

I'm a little biased and believe flash has a wonderful place on the web. Seems a lot of people who do not like it or do not want to see it move forward are those who program in html and other static languages. And I don't blame them for commenting negatively against flash, their livelyhood might be on the line if everything turns to a cloud of application based web 2.0 programs and plug-in filled browsers.

2 years ago I was commenting on how nice it is to see things like flash checkout systems and/or eve ajax based checkout systems that eliminate pages and countless clickings, and make a seamless system (whatever that system may be). Now a lot of companies are headed in that direction, trying to elimnate the counteless clutter of pages that is holding down the internet as is.

I for one, and again, I"m a little biased being a flash based company, look forward to better indexing of all content, whatever that may be (flash, silverlight, etc...)

[avoir des goûts simples]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Clearly no one is getting my point. Flash websites currently will not rank for more keywords and higher competitive keywords. Your showing me some nice rankings but dont you realize the other 9 positions are taken by HTML based websites?

Show me a Flash website that "owns" a set of rankings. We can all find Flash websites that have 1-2-3 high rankings.

i get your point, not all flash site ranks in se for top 1 - 5 ? What if the site is not actually a flash site? I mean the only flash in a site is the game and the rest uses HTML codes.

[john9886003088]

it is still considered a flash site.
so it is listed as flash site

[EmpireKitchen]

our site is designed in flash and we dont think its being read, how do we chack and see if its working?