Optimising for flash sites

[Stooge]

I have a flash site that I need to optimise. It has an index.html with the old 'enter here' button that points to a 'main.html' page that has the flash embedded.

My question is, as the flash is full screen across the html page, is that a major problem for spiders even though the meta tags, title tags etc are in place within the html?

Also, would it be useful if I included hidden text keywords eg. to improve on the page content factor...which of course is non existant with something like an 'enter' page?

Any tips or tricks and wise words will be greatly appreciated!

[bhartzer]

Sites with these types of 'enter' pages are a nightmare for SEOs as they don't contain enough content to get any decent rankings.

I suggest you remove it altogether and just go ahead and make the main page of the site the main page of the site, content and all.

As for hidden text, I would stay away from it. Far away from it as it will potentially get the site banned.

The only other thing you could do is to cloak the site, and that's not necessarily recommended.

[Stooge]

Thanks for the good advice bhartzer. I will steer well clear of the hidden text. Sounds like trouble.

[ferret77]

you use a <noscript> tag I beleive for indexing content of flash sites

I have optimized flsh site for reasonably competitive terms and just a html version of the site under the main flash page

[Stooge]

Is that in no way considered the same as 'hidden' text and if not, how much content is safely acceptable to the spiders? Sounds like a great option but i'm just a little apprehensive. Has has anyone ever noticed a problem with using the <noscript> tag?

Cheers for the great advice, keep it comin...

[Mel]

The noembed tag is read by spiders and will give you a place to put content that you want the spiders to see on Flash sites. It was designed for those who cannot see Flash (like spiders) Just keep the content relevant.

Putting a noscript tag on a page that has no script is not necessary and could be a risk.

[Stooge]

Great stuff. Thanks Mel :-)

[rascalpants]

I am a flash expert and obviously very much in favor of the use of Flash on web sites. But I think it is poor site design to use a completely encapsulated Flash interface for a basic web site. Not only do you waste time loading the "white space" but unless you are using a modular or load at run-time technique, then it takes longer for the site to show up...

An html and Flash hybrid web site is always the best thing to use for a basic web site. Unless the site is a web application itself, then you can break up the elements into multiple SWF files. This allows you to use html for your content area and Flash for your web apps, commercial ads, and some navigation elements. This is not always possible, and can sometimes be more complicated to develop, but in the long run is better for everyone.

And as far as the "enter here" index page issue, I think you can use them for specific web sites such as artistic or experimental sites... or personal / portfolio web sites... but it is generally a much better idea to provide the basic who what where why stuff on the very first page of a web site... this still can be done in a short text paragraph, and the complementing images should also be enough to explain what you are about or selling...

hope this helps...

rascalpants,
New Media Designer
www.rascalpants.com
www.kcnewmedia.com

[wimvlekken]

In webmasterworld.com a few weeks ago GoogleGuy confirmed that Google is able te index flash. Though they don't see the advantage, because most flash is only graphical. But since early may they can index text in flash.
FAST did it since last year and I suppose that Yahoo! hase taken it over, but I'm not sure of that. I have not seen yet a commend on that item by Tim_Yahoo in the Webmasterworld discussions.
BillSpots

[Stooge]

I agree with the blending of the two. Thing is I was approached by a potential client who's site had an index 'enter here' page with no text apart from that link, and then the whole site loaded up in flash (not html embedded) and they wanted it optimised to like the top 3 on google, without adding any content to the index.html. EEK.
Not impossible as their area of business is not that competetive, but a bit of a sweaty palmer. I've been learnign SEO but I've not heard from them again anyways. Probably a good thing as they were'nt willing to pay much at all.

As for the robots indexing flash content, I'm not sure about it but i'll watch and see how it develops and how reliable it becomes.
Again, thanks for the great tips!