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iang
10-31-2005, 07:49 AM
We have a flash animation on the front page of our website that cycles through customer testimonials. The Flash animation loads these testimonials in from an XML file.

Can the search engines detect text (keywords) displayed by the Flash animation, if not is it possible they will read the XML file?

Thanks
bdw
11-01-2005, 04:05 AM
There have been reports that Google is doing some limited indexing of Flash with the emphasis is on limited. I would just stay away from it because it's on the way out anyway.
iang
11-01-2005, 04:52 AM
Was not aware that Flash was on the way out (do Macromedia know this), if so what will replace it?

Anyway done some further reading and it does seem that Google's indexing of Flash is limited. Macromedia do have an SDK (software development kit) that enables search engines to read text inside a Flash Movie however the only two engines listed are Atomz and PicoSearch, typical used for providing on-site searches.
iang
11-01-2005, 09:33 AM
Found a possible solution to this problem at the following website

http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/04/44/index4a.html?tw=programming

It involves using the $HTTP_USER_AGENT variable in PHP to detect whether a human or a robot is browsing the site and set the content accordingly. A human browser gets the Flash Movie while the robot gets to see the text content of the Flash Movie (perhaps formatted in XML).

Is this likely that Search Engines might not approve of this type of approach?
bdw
11-02-2005, 04:30 AM
Found a possible solution to this problem at the following website

http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/04/44/index4a.html?tw=programming

It involves using the $HTTP_USER_AGENT variable in PHP to detect whether a human or a robot is browsing the site and set the content accordingly. A human browser gets the Flash Movie while the robot gets to see the text content of the Flash Movie (perhaps formatted in XML).

Is this likely that Search Engines might not approve of this type of approach?

I'll answer your question with another question. If you were a search engine would you approve of this bearing in mind the scope it allows for abuse?

Regarding Flash, perhaps "on the way out" was not the correct expression but I only deal in small business websites where SEO is highly important so there is no place for Flash on them. I know that this is a generally accepted view in my line of business.
iang
11-02-2005, 05:14 AM
I think you are probably right, that trying to present different views to a robot and human user might be seen as abuse. Looks like I going to try to find another method of displaying the testimonials.

Thanks for the advice.