Flash time again

[Chris Boggs]

In his recent article (http://www.clickz.com/experts/brand/cmo/article.php/3449931), Mark Kingdon gives a good breakdown of the factors involved when deciding the merits of using Flash. However, he doesn't go into it's effect on SEO.

Although providing a non-Flash version of content and using <no script> are some detours, who in here believes that all SE's will have to figure out a way (like Google has I believe) to "read" Flash in order to continue to provide all the best results for searchers?

[kidmercury]

ive read some stuff -- like this posting over at cre8asite (http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=8696) -- that claims SE's now can read flash.

[Chris Boggs]

I realise now that I may have been mixing my Flash and Java when I started this thread...the <no script> tag is all about Java Script and not flash I think? These are the times when it is hard not being a developer... :o

Kid I see that many of the posts in that link were dated, anything more recent you have found about this subject? I had heard too that Google can see within Flash but no one else? Rumor?

[kidmercury]

unfortunately i have not heard very much about this at all. i read an article a few months back -- i forget where -- that stated you needed to create your swf files using a certain version of flash for it to be read by google, although i forget the specifics. google is the only one i've heard who can allegedly read flash.

still though if you look at search engine rankings, there is still a dearth of flash sites that rank highly. those that do do so based on domain names, title tags, and inbound links.

when i first heard this i thought it would be revolutionary, and that sites would now gravitate to be all flash-based instead of html -- especially as broadband adoption rates continue to grow at remarkable rates. but there has been very little excitement about this, even from within the flash community. not sure why.

[Chris Boggs]

Ooh I feel excited because I think that it has just been explained to me. :D

In essence, according to a developer with lots of experience, the Javascript starts off in the code by checking if, among other things, the browser is "Flash-enabled." If it is, it can skip the <no script> portion of the code and go straight to the Flash. If not, the browser/spider will continue to read down to the <<no script> tag and present the info within it.

Very nutshell, but this actually makes sense to me. Thus if a search engine spider is unable to "read" Flash, it will read and index /follow links within the <no script>.

No wonder black hats have such an aray of methods. No matter what Google says, I have found a variety of high-ranking sites with keywords stuffed within the <no script>. I hope that in the future SE's do not begin to mistrust <no script>, if they haven't already done so...

still though if you look at search engine rankings, there is still a dearth of flash sites that rank highly. those that do do so based on domain names, title tags, and inbound links.

AND what's in the <no script>

[kidmercury]

awesome info, chris. thanks for the post!