Flash in SEO??

[weegillis]

... part of a well rounded and executed marketing plan.

Exactly. Even the best SEO can be flat when it comes to conversions. Design and user interface that closes wins out, every time.

The cooperation of Adobe and Google is a good sign, especially if it means Google will start hosting APIs that can speed up Flash and Acrobat for the whole web. Can we expect development of flash widgets to accelerate after hearing this news? If so, it would look to be a good time to enter your flash into the fray.

MrGamm raises an important point, that of separate pages/urls as opposed to a single flash web. If you use widgets, rather than full page presentations you can have the best of both worlds, especially if you use optimized images and streaming downloads.

Be sure to replicate somewhere in the html any of the links that are written in the ActionScript so non-Flash users can navigate your (alternate) site.

[john02]

but i think SEO is still necessary to make our website visible. The user need to find our website before we can satisfy them and free way for them to find our website is from SEO.

[weegillis]

SEO is something that is directly derived from a well formed web, before any extra touches are added. The lines seem to blur between optimizing for the search engines, and marketing to the search engines. The optimizing part is straight forward if one uses well formed markup and keyword/key phrase rich titles and content. In fact, if you code for Accessibility, you are already coding for SEO.

Regardless whether Google of the others can see inside SWF, other user agents may not be able to. We need to code the site to provide alternate content for non-plug-in users. This will make your web even more visible to spiders.

For flash, as in any other plug-in, size and organization are major determining factors in how well indexed your web becomes. We all know that new webs are picked up very quickly. The content is what will push the site up in the results and make the site visible. But like mtheory intimates, the search engines, and the web in general, are just one small part of any well planned marketing campaign.

As has been pointed out in 'other threads' the social networks are powerful tools for marketing your web, your idea, or your product, but what the prospect sees and experiences when they reach your site is going to be the closer. Optimize with this in mind.

[jane0109]

Does anyone have any suggestions for insuring that adding flash to my website will not hinder my SEO efforts?

Google has an algo now that can read Flash site. So there's no problem now on having flash site.

[MrGamm]

As far as I know... links within a flash file typically are not counted as links which link to external documents if the flash file is an encapsulated SWF style file.

A flash animation is typically considered a single page no matter how many different pages you try to cram into it.

[Marcus]

Regardless of SEO, you should never use flash on the first page of your web site. Flash is ok for optional followup pages but the links to those pages should indicate that it contains flash.

Your first page needs to load instantly even on slow computers and slow connections. Otherwise you will lose your audience. You only have seconds to get someones interest.

The exception to the above is if you want to limit your audience to people who have unlimited bandwidth and fast connections, and you want to be sure no one else will stay on your site.

The first thing I do when I open a site and the first page contains flash (or auto start sound or video) is to close that tab and go somewhere else.

[fast1]

I think this is hard to do it, flash in SEO.. I will stick to native HTML tag.

[Magnus Vogel]

Google give Priority to content and then other from searching purpose, so I think flash can do little bad.

[forumer12]

If you have a well established and known-all-over-the-world website like YouTube (which Google owns anyway) or BMW you don't really have to worry about decreasing your SEO efforts with flash. Those sites already have tons of backlinks, site authority, traffic and PR. But for most of us who are still trying hard to get ranked in the search engines, every little bit helps. And for now, flash is not good for SEO. It may not always be bad, but it definitely doesn't help.

[texxs]

If you have a well established and known-all-over-the-world website like YouTube (which Google owns anyway) or BMW you don't really have to worry about decreasing your SEO efforts with flash. Those sites already have tons of backlinks, site authority, traffic and PR. But for most of us who are still trying hard to get ranked in the search engines, every little bit helps. And for now, flash is not good for SEO. It may not always be bad, but it definitely doesn't help.

Youtube started as nobodies. THEN they became popular. They weren't the only competition. They are a great example because there product was actually inferior to thier competition, They only thing they had better was that they had titles and comments in plain text where SE's could see it. Most of the others didn't. It's a huge part of their success.

Flash doesn't "decrease" anyone SEO effort.

Especially now that Google can rad the text in Flash movies. But even before.

Plus it could (and still can, it's just a little harder now.) be used to hide things you don't want a SE to read, like "Buy now" "World's Best" etc.

Please all you "Flash Haters" just go somewhere else to diss on Flash. Try to work on your envy issues.