Flash is Indexable but is it Preferable?

[J-Dawg]

It was recently brought to my attention that I have been holding on to the out dated notion that search engines cannot read flash. Seems they now read flash content and links just fine thanks to the Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK technology. In fact a search on Google for any search term along with the filetype operator "swf" will bring up a result list of nothing but flash documents.

Example Query: "dog filetype:swf"

So this raises some questions.

Flash is indexable but is it preferable from an SEO point of view?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Flash at this stage in the game?

Why use it? Why not use it?

Are there any clear examples of a purely flash site winning or losing in the SERPs due to design?

Any thoughts in general? Would you recommend flash?

[NYChris]

Originally Posted by J-Dawg

It was recently brought to my attention that I have been holding on to the out dated notion that search engines cannot read flash. Seems they now read flash content and links just fine thanks to the Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK technology. In fact a search on Google for any search term along with the filetype operator "swf" will bring up a result list of nothing but flash documents.

Example Query: "dog filetype:swf"

So this raises some questions.

Flash is indexable but is it preferable from an SEO point of view?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Flash at this stage in the game?

Why use it? Why not use it?

Are there any clear examples of a purely flash site winning or losing in the SERPs due to design?

Any thoughts in general? Would you recommend flash?

FLASH = BAD STILL
Try your search without adding the extention.
Nobody looking for anything (other than flash files) will ever add an extention to their queries.
And with no extention within the query, you get .php .html .htm .asp .cfm .jsp and even .js or .css, BUT NO .swf .

So, when you specify the specific extention, you are in essence telling the search engine to ignore 80% of it's indexed documents.

Currently there are two search engines trying to get flash to index, their progress is real slow and riddled with flaws.
Maybe a few years from now.

This is just my personal opinion based on 21 years of computer experience.

[J-Dawg]

NYChris Wrote:

"And with no extention within the query, you get .php .html .htm .asp .cfm .jsp and even .js or .css, BUT NO .swf."

True... but swf files could be embedded with in most of these types of documents.

And I realize that no one would search for "dog filetype:swf" but just the fact that Google can read the content and follow the links makes me wonder about the situation.

Is content in flash as valid as standard text? Do the links pass on value in the same manner?

[Dinghus]

Of course you won't find .swf in your search results. There are no stand alone swfs on the internet, they are all embedded in an html page (or cfm, asp, php whatever).

NOW you can build a site totally in Flash and have it ranked in the SEs. BUT they will be HTML pages that are listed NOT swfs.

Just like graphics are embedded so normal searches will not turn up graphics UNTIL recently when Google started their graphics search function. Hopefully something similar will come along for swfs so they will show up like graphics do now.

The lesson here is IF you are going to use flash on your site, optimize it for search engines. Of course nobody knows how to do that yet. LOL

[swirt]

Google currently (and has done so for a few years)indexes Flash files separately from the page they are embedded in. Google can read the text in a Flash file, but it associates it with the .swf file not the page it is embedded on. On occasion these swf files will show up in a search and compete with other pages, but they don't do very well as they get no link benefit.

The other problem with Flash being indexed is that it just spiders the text without any context of "this is important" <H1> or "this is less important" <H2> or even, "this is bold" [b]

Unless you have some good angle on a non compeitive niche topic, the swf will not do well, so there is not much reason to focus on any search engine benefit from Flash.

[craigmn3]

Currently there are two search engines trying to get flash to index, their progress is real slow and riddled with flaws.
Maybe a few years from now.

Something tells me that in a few years we're going to be saying...."what is flash" as the relevant become irrelvant things inexorable change. I'm gonna save that and put it on my floppy disk drive. Has anyone seen my floppy disk drive? it's right next to me 12k modem and 80 mb hard drive.

[orangemike]

Originally Posted by craigmn3

Has anyone seen my floppy disk drive? it's right next to me 12k modem and 80 mb hard drive.

You're so futuristic! I've still got my 300-baud modem and 10mb Kaypro around the house somewhere.

[KeeKee]

I couldn't help but smile at the oldies. I still have a 800mb Seagate HD and she works just fine :) I can get 98 on it but don't think XP would work :(

[AndrewGreen]

... this is all apart from the point that Flash movies can be really annoying for people on slow connections and are therefore best used for parts of pages, not for whole pages.

BTW people, being pedantic -
'm' stands for milli
'M' stands for mega
'b' stands for bit
'B' stands for byte
... and I don't think anyone EVER had an 80 millibit drive or, come to that, a 10 millibit or 800 millibit one!

[NYChris]

FACT:
The most clicked button on the entire World Wide Web is "SKIP INTRO"

If you want to keep thinking that flash has any value whatsoever in serps... go for it, and I'll see you at the soup kitchen.

[KeeKee]

800 MegaByte

[JohneeMac]

What has been said really.

You can certainly get a Flash site to rank highly, but you will need to build a lot more links. How many? No one can really be sure but a lot more.

Your basically giving yourself a lot more work and getting off on a bad foot if you want to compete with an HTML version.