Optimizing Flash files for the search engines

[rockcoastmedia]

What is a Flash Movie?
A flash movie, or shock wave file (SWF), is the file format published when a Flash movie is exported. A SWF file can also be exported by several other Macromedia or Adobe Products. The SWF is usually an animation, dynamic menu, or highly interactive web-based application embedded into an HTML page. Flash files, when exported correctly for the best web-based optimization, are compressed, thus making their file size lightweight. The SWF format is ideal for presenting vector-based, interactive and animated graphics with sound and video for the web. Vector images are ideal because they will not “pixilize” if stretched or compressed. Flash files can also contain text which can be animated, static or dynamically populated from external sources, such an XML file or a database. Text embedded in a Flash file, for many years, could not be read by search engines. However, recent updates by Macromedia are making this a possibility.

Problems with Flash and Search Engines
Historically, it has been difficult to get Flash content indexed and ranked by search engines. In the past, search engines, such as Yahoo and Google, did not spider Flash content as they could not read the compressed file and much of the text inside the SWF appeared as graphics to the search engines.

The main page of a web site, if Flash-based, rarely ranked well, unless off-page factors such as link popularity or link reputation were sufficient enough to carry the page. Flash files that were indexed by Google, Lycos and other search engines, which did not have any text or key words associated with them in the search engine results pages (SERP).

Techniques Used in the Past to Make Flash Visible to Search Engines
Traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques would help your site get indexed, but not rank for search terms. Every web site needs at least one HTML page to load into a browser. For a web site developed completely in Flash, developers would embed their flash files into an HTML document and then create the meta tags in the head section of the HTML file. They would also add descriptive HTML text for the search engines in the body section of the HTML page, then use CSS positioning and percentages to load the Flash move in a pixel-perfect location over the top of text. This particular technique should not be used any longer, as search engines will view this technique as an attempt to add hidden text, and hidden text will incur a penalty from the engines.

In the past, Google did index Flash files. Anyone can test this fact out by searching in Google using the “filetype” operator to restrict your search. For example, try the following search: "Casino Games filetype:SWF”. The SERP will include over 200 Flash files, which are indicated by the “Flash” text to the left of the listing.

Some search engines are now using the Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK (Software Development Kit). For example, Google, AllTheWeb, Lycos, and other sites can readily display links to Flash content. Flash Search SDK is and open source tool that allows search engines to modify it to suit their needs. With this level of customization, it is likely that the major search engines will modify SDK, making it difficult for website owners to know exactly what information will be pulled out of the SWF file or how it will impact actual rankings.

The Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK can be found at http://www.macromedia.com/software/f.../search_engine. According to the Macromedia/Adobe web site, The SDK includes an application named 'swf2HTML'. Swf2HTML extracts text and links from a Macromedia Flash SWF file, and returns the data to an HTML document. Swf2HTML is provided as a compiled application and as a static library for linked library implementation. SDK can interoperate any links that are in the action script so long as adhere to the following criteria:
• The link is contained within single quotes (' ') or double quotes (" "), and
• The link prefix is HTTP, and
• The link suffix is HTM, HTML, CFM, SWF, JPG, JPEG, MP3, or WAV
By default SDK extracts the following text from your flash file:
• Text on stage in the current movie (dynamic text, static text, or input text that has an initial value assigned)
• Text on stage in a movie that is called with movieClip.attachMovie()
Google can see certain text in Flash files now, but how and where certain text gets extracted depends on what you do with that text in the Flash presentation. For example, text that is static or is used in a motion tween can be read as a single instance with SDK. However, some animation involves converting text into a symbol and then using multiple copies of that symbol to achieve a desired effect. This will create duplicate instances of your text to the SDK output, which may be viewed as duplicate content and not given much importance by Google.

Using the SDK tool, any developer can get the text output from the SWF and see how search engines view the extractable text of any SWF. On a Windows operating system, you can go to the DOS prompt and execute the swf2HTML application very easily. The following is an example from the DOS prompt: C:\sdk\swf2HTML -o test.HTML C:\sdk\crt_webfiles\test.swf

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques Used Historically for Flash
Each Flash file does not need to be uploaded independently and called as a SWF file; rather a Flash file can be embedded in a standard HTML document. One of the best techniques is to create a modular web site, where there are several Flash files which make up the web page combined with standard HTML elements. A hybrid site such as this, works especially well, if your navigation uses traditional HTML links. You can use cascading style sheets to give the appearance of flash text links. This type of hybrid site will always rank better than an all Flash site – all other factors being equal. It's also important to have your HTML page title correct, regardless of anything else. Several search engines look at meta titles first. In addition to the page title, you can add meta tags to the head of the file. Outside of the actual HTML page, off page factors are important. There has been much written in recent articles that reciprocal links are not as important any longer, but certainly, one-way links pointing to your site from highly relevant and high ranking pages will increase your page rank. In addition links from prominent directories, such as Yahoo and Business.com, placed in the most relevant categories will help. One-way inbound links from relevant sites is still the best way to increase your ranking with or without Flash.

There are programming techniques which work while in the Flash authoring environment. While you are in the Flash authoring environment, with your FLA open...click F12. It will generate the HTML page for you. Look at the code of the page; it creates a place for you to put the text and URL's used in the Flash.

New SEO Techniques for Flash
Today there are many techniques which can overcome the limitations of the past, where Flash files are concerned. With the inception of the new Macromedia Flash 8, there are techniques which can be implemented to greatly increase the ability of search engines to index Flash files and even rank for key words.

In the past, SWF files could not have titles. This is one important reason why Flash files didn't rank well. This title limitation has now changed. Flash 8 does allow you to input meta data. Flash 8 defines two fields with meta data for all Flash files. These two fields are Title and Description. You can access the meta data fields under Document Properties. To add meta data, fill in the text fields and the search engines will know what info to display about your Flash file.

SDK is fairly intelligent in terms of recognizing text and links that are embedded in the file. If text is static or dynamically driven by an XML or text file, it can be read. If your content is dynamically driven it must be done so using the latest version of ActionScript 2.0. The SDK does parse ActionScript 2 byte code looking for links. It could conceivably find the link to the XML file that way and hand it back to a search engine.

As referenced earlier, certain text can be modified into a symbol rather than strait text. For example, a button might have the text output two or three times. Alternatively, tweened text has motion associated with the action. Tweens result in a single occurrence in the output from the extraction process. You should also notice that the link text in the Google results page is identical to the first couple of lines of text at the very top of the text extracted by swf2HTML. Armed with the knowledge of how SDK parses your content, you can manipulate text in your Flash Movies more carefully and make your content key word dense, easily indexable, search engine friendly and, with a little more skill, even optimized.

What is the gist of all this? Flash is still not the best solution for a pure SEO-based project, but their have been giant leaps forward by both the search engines and Macromedia in allowing your flash files to be indexed and even rank for the key word phrases you covet.
This Article was written by Mike Goldstein. Mike is the SEO Manager at Rock Coast Media. (edited)

[animal57]

I really like the point you brought out about using SDK by Macromedia. It is nice to see Macromedia taking the initiative to work with search engines so that all of us Flash developers can feel more comfortable building Flash sites. My question to you is how do I use the SDK tool.

I downloaded it to my computer and put in to DOS:
C:\sdk\swf2HTML -o output.HTML intro.swf, but I keep getting an error message, which states the swf2html can not run?

[rockcoastmedia]

Animal 57, thanks for your compliment on my article. I hope this inspires others to write what they have found about Flash and SEO.

When I look at your command for using SDK, it looks like your file intro.swf is in your computer's root directory. What I mean by this is that you are telling the SDK that the path is: C:intro.swf. I am not saying this is not where you file is, for it may be, but that is always a possiblity. also, C:\sdk\swf2HTML is the location of my swf2html.exe, (C:sdk/...) if you did not create a directory on your C drive called sdk, DOS will not be able to find your file. What the gist of all this means is make sure you are using the correct paths, for example lets say you do have an SDK directory on the C drive and inside that you have both the executable file and the SWF, you command would be:

C:\sdk\swf2HTML -o output.HTML C:\sdk\intro.swf

Then you would look in your C drive and find an html file called output.html which would have all the text and links extracted from your file. If you look closely, the first few lines of text in the file should match the text (even if you have images set as text) in your flash file, as well as in the search engine results for the .swf. This of course assumes you are not using Flash 8, and used the meta data feature, which I also talked about in my article.

I hope this helps.

[animal57]

Thanks RockCoastmedia, the SDK worked perfectly. The only probelm I saw was the term loading about 15 times, I guess that is what you were refering to about creating symbols with text.

Originally Posted by rockcoastmedia

Animal 57, thanks for your compliment on my article. I hope this inspires others to write what they have found about Flash and SEO.

When I look at your command for using SDK, it looks like your file intro.swf is in your computer's root directory. What I mean by this is that you are telling the SDK that the path is: C:intro.swf. I am not saying this is not where you file is, for it may be, but that is always a possiblity. also, C:\sdk\swf2HTML is the location of my swf2html.exe, (C:sdk/...) if you did not create a directory on your C drive called sdk, DOS will not be able to find your file. What the gist of all this means is make sure you are using the correct paths, for example lets say you do have an SDK directory on the C drive and inside that you have both the executable file and the SWF, you command would be:

C:\sdk\swf2HTML -o output.HTML C:\sdk\intro.swf

Then you would look in your C drive and find an html file called output.html which would have all the text and links extracted from your file. If you look closely, the first few lines of text in the file should match the text (even if you have images set as text) in your flash file, as well as in the search engine results for the .swf. This of course assumes you are not using Flash 8, and used the meta data feature, which I also talked about in my article.

I hope this helps.

[Marcia]

This new Macromedia "feature" is good marketing on their part to keep developers continuing to use Flash, and provides the web designers with a good sales pitch to try to convince potential customers. Nevertheless, it needs a deeper, very realistic look.

Just to be clear, are you implying that Flash sites, even done as you've described, can be optimized as effectively as normal HTML text sites with multiple pages targeting multiple keywords, and can compete on an equal footing for multiple and competitive keywords in competitive markets? That's a very simple yes or no.

Something else - SEO is not a one time thing, there needs to be upkeep and maintenance for "tweaking" and adapting sites to algorithm changes. How do you propose that those changes can be implemented?

[rockcoastmedia]

Marcia,

I agree that SDK is a great tool to help optimize Flash sites, as is metadata. However, I never said that a complete flash site can be optimized just as well as an html site. Rather, I suggested to create a hybrid site. In my article I said,

"Flash is still not the best solution for a pure SEO-based project, but their have been giant leaps forward by both the search engines and Macromedia in allowing your flash files to be indexed and even rank for the key word phrases you covet."

I agree, as an SEO, I preach off site optimization as key, such as one-way inbound links, submission to the key directories such as busienss.com and Yahoo directory, MSN Directory etc. I also think it is key to run position reports and make sure your title tags key word density and othe factors.

[Robert_Charlton]

Originally Posted by rockcoastmedia

...a great tool to help optimize Flash sites, as is metadata.

rockcoastmedia - My emphasis above. Flash or no Flash, meta data, in my opinion, is not a good optimization tool.

Search engines reward what is prominent and what is visible. They don't trust meta elements because they aren't visible.

The title element is not a meta element. It is prominently visible, on the top of the browser window, and, most important, it's what appears in search engine serps and what searchers click on. It also needs to be supported by onpage content.

The meta description is important because it's returned with searches in some circumstances on some engines, but it doesn't seem to be significant as a ranking factor.

Meta keywords have been dead for a good long time. Once more...

Death Of A Meta Tag
By Danny Sullivan, Editor-In-Chief
October 1, 2002
http://searchenginewatch.com/serepor...le.php/2165061

Originally Posted by Danny Sullivan

Traffick.com's Andrew Goodman wrote recently in an essay about meta tags, "If somebody would just declare the end of the metatag era, full stop, it would make it easier on everyone."

I'm happy to oblige, at least in the case of the meta keywords tag. Now supported by only one major crawler-based search engine -- Inktomi -- the value of adding meta keywords tags to pages seems little worth the time. In my opinion, the meta keywords tag is dead, dead, dead. And like Andrew, good riddance, I say!

As for inbound links, yes, they are important, but not as important as you suggest. Do you feel that they can overcome the lack of onpage content and structure as well as the lack of an optimized internal site architecture?

[rockcoastmedia]

Robert, I respectfully disagree with you when it comes to metadata in Flash files. However, I whole heartedly agree with respect to HTML metadata. If you were to do a search on Google for "court Room" the metadata title and description are what is showing in the SERP. I had an offline conversation with Animal 57, who gave me permission to use his site as an example. Even though their is an HTML title tag, which is very similar to the metadata tag from flash, Google is reporting what is in the metadata:

Forensic Animation - Electronic Data Discovery- Court Room ToolsComputer generated visual aids for litigation.
http://www.courtroomtools.com/ - 3k - Cached - Similar pages

In addition, the meta data description in the HTML will not affect the ranking in any way, as you said. However, it is the default write-up in the SERP and can determine whether a user actaully clicks on the link. IMHO it does not matter if you are ranked #1 for the most competitive key words, if no one clicks on your link, then what good was all that SEO work.

I guess what I am saying is I do agree to some extent with you that metadata in HTML is not as important as it once was, but their are absolute benefits to be had from both the Flash version of metadata and standard HTML metadata in your Flash files or standard HTML pages.

One thing is for sure, even Flash has regoginized the complete obsolencence of the keyword meta data as they do not include it in the options available in Flash 8.

finally, and not to harp on this point, but no one factor whether it be on or off page optimization will get your site ranked highly. A good SEO needs to imploy a combination of techniques including key word density (SDK helps with Flash) Title tags, inbound links, submissions to major directories, meta data etc.

[Marcia]

Even though their is an HTML title tag, which is very similar to the metadata tag from flash, Google is reporting what is in the metadata:

Sure, here's what a search at Google for site:

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...oomtools%2Ecom

But that is exactly what Google is forced to do when there is nothing else to base the snippet on - like with that Flash homepage. See what's cached as being indexed?

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...s&ct=clnk&cd=1

NOTHING indexed on the page, nothing cached. So there was no choice but to use the meta description for the snippet. But how is that site ranking for what appears to be the major keyphrase, going by the main page title - "forensic animation"?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...&btnG=Sea rch

A good SEO needs to imploy a combination of techniques including key word density (SDK helps with Flash) Title tags, inbound links, submissions to major directories, meta data etc.

And any SEO who isn't using "sitewide" optimization in the mix, of which metadata is a miniscule factor (if at all), is using a very limited, partial toolbox and is not doing half the job they could in order to rank.

[Robert_Charlton]

Marcia - Thanks for summing it up so well.

Another variant on Google's cache for courtroomtools.com, on a search for "court room."

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...s&ct=clnk&cd=4

NOTE: "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: court room"

Originally Posted by rockcoastmedia

A good SEO needs to imploy a combination of techniques...
(my emphasis)

rockcoastmedia - Precisely. This page is basically ranking only because of inbound links on a common misspelling of courtroom that's not likely to have many commercial searches. I can imagine that not many other pages on the web have inbound links containing this particular phrase.

But, you're not using any other optimization tools available to an SEO on a non-Flash site.

For "forensic animation," which Marcia has asked about several times, you're #84. Now, I've got to say that it doesn't appear to be a very competitive phrase. It shouldn't be hard to rank higher than that.

I'm not trying to embarrass you here, and I'm sure Marcia's not either... but you're making strong assertions about Flash sites and SEO that, in my opinion anyway, simply aren't true... and I think they require a response. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who've blown their entire budget on building a fancy Flash site only to discover that it's search engine invisible.

Here's an earlier post of mine about the disadvantages that a Flash-only site encounters...

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/...7012#post37012

[rockcoastmedia]

As I did not build the courtroomtools.com site, I can not speak to the coding done on the site, but really only what I learned from Animal 57. However, I do know that the term forensic animation is ranking very highly on MSN. I also do believe a strong off page optimization campaign if done correctly along with the static content in the Flash file which SDK is reading along with good meta titles both in the flash file and in the HTML file itself can create significant improvements.

Now with all this said, I am not by any means suggesting that a pure Flash site is easy to rank above a pure HTML site, and in fact, I would think it would take 10 times the amount of work to do so. My suggestion in the original posting was to create a hybrid site where flash is used to spice up the page, or to create a specific user interactive application (such as certain mapping applications) that can be accomplished no other way in such a streamlined fashion. However, I always advise my clients that there does need to be an area in the site to use HTML for important text, as well as creating the navigation of the site using HTML text links and applying a .CSS file which can mimic the Flash look and feel. Finally, I do advise my clients to create multiple pages. The reason I am hot on this courtroomtools.com site is simply to use it as an example of a site that does not appear to have a great deal of off page optimization and still shows up. If I had created the site, once you get into the interior pages, I would suggest allowing the text to be HTML, as their is nothing special about those and the fade effect can be accomplished with some very creative CSS.

Lastly, I do not take offense at any of these critisisms of my initial posting, but rather welcome them as a way to flush out any issues in my research and continue to work to find the bet possilbe way to optimize a Flash site if the client absoulutly insists upon it. (keep in mind an HTML version is often not an option, and even if it is, that is the page the search engines will pick up first.)

[animal57]

I am the one who created Court Room Tools and it does get about 50 hits a day from MSN on the Forensic Animation search. It does not get so many from Google. Rockcoast I think much of your article has a lot of merrit. I wanted to point out after reading what has been said over the last week that this site was actaully never meant to be an SEO optimzed site, but rather was meant as a CD-ROM for my sales force.

However, one Flash site that was meant to be optimized is WizeGuides.com. This is a Flash map of the Boston Subway System (know in Bostn as the MBTA). This site does have some pretty good rankings and is getting 500+ hits a day from Goolge. Just as an example, these are some of the ranikings this Flash site is getting, mostly from the content of the site, which is pulling 40 different SWF files all into the main SWF file.

Keyword Position
boston subway 2
boston subway map 3
boston maps 7
mbta map 4
boston t map 2
subway boston 2
mbta maps 2
map of boston 17
mbta subway map 6
subway in boston 3
subway map boston 3
map of boston t 3
map boston t 3
mbta map boston 7

This site uses inbound links, title tags, Flash 8 metatags, static content (no content is being pulled by an exteranal file, except those in external SWF files and other techniques.

I hope this shows you that sites can complete in Flash even when they are not hybrid. I wounder if I had this site in a hybrid application, how much better I really could get it?

[rockcoastmedia]

In an article posted today at <mod edit www.site-reference.com/articles/General/The-Importance-of-Meta-tags-Providing-the-Human-Touch.html />meta tags are making a comeback with MSN and Yahoo. This is not so much in the ranking, but in the click rates.

Both Yahoo and MSN’s new engines seemed to use content from the Title and Description meta-tags to display in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

These observations appear to be the case even today. By running a query for the term, “Online Advertising” on MSN, I got some interesting results (screenshots available <mod edit> at the same URL as referenced above)

The point they drive home, which I have said a few times as well is: "When people search for keywords in your industry it isn’t enough to be #1 on the list of results. You still need to convince those humans to click on your link."

Originally Posted by Robert_Charlton

rockcoastmedia - My emphasis above. Flash or no Flash, meta data, in my opinion, is not a good optimization tool.

Search engines reward what is prominent and what is visible. They don't trust meta elements because they aren't visible.

The title element is not a meta element. It is prominently visible, on the top of the browser window, and, most important, it's what appears in search engine serps and what searchers click on. It also needs to be supported by onpage content.

The meta description is important because it's returned with searches in some circumstances on some engines, but it doesn't seem to be significant as a ranking factor.

Meta keywords have been dead for a good long time. Once more...

Death Of A Meta Tag
By Danny Sullivan, Editor-In-Chief
October 1, 2002
http://searchenginewatch.com/serepor...le.php/2165061



As for inbound links, yes, they are important, but not as important as you suggest. Do you feel that they can overcome the lack of onpage content and structure as well as the lack of an optimized internal site architecture?

[Marcia]

Keyword Position
boston subway 2
boston subway map 3
boston maps 7
mbta map 4
boston t map 2
subway boston 2
mbta maps 2
map of boston 17
mbta subway map 6
subway in boston 3
subway map boston 3
map of boston t 3
map boston t 3
mbta map boston 7

And tell us how many searches there are for those phrases according to Overture or WordTracker. If anyone sold you SEO services to rank for those keywords, then you got sold a bill of goods. Sorry, but totally non-competitive keywords don't take optimization to be able to rank because there is NO competition for them.

Phrases that nobody searches for are *not* any kind of an argument for something - and it's seriously debatable that those keyword placements are bringing sizeable traffic, if any. Search engines are not the only source of traffic, so neither are traffic stats.

rockcoastmedia:

The title element is NOT a meta tag (it is an element not a tag, BTW - the tags are the HTML, not what appears in the browser). It never has been and never will be. It is treated completely differently than meta tags.

Meta tags for purposes of this discussion are the meta description and meta keywords. Just because the meta description may at times be used on the SERPs does *not* mean that it's critical to rankings, because many sites rank splendidly for very competitive keywords with no meta tags of any kind being used.

Furthermore:

If you are trying to promote and sell SEO services for Flash sites, saying that the limited toolset is adequate, that's your personal choice and YOUR business model. But for the rest of us, reality is that Flash is not compatible with being able to rank for any search terms that are worth taking client's money for, except to take the time to inform them that their sites are NOT search engine friendly and suggest that they re-think their choice to have an all-Flash site.

And finally:

Please, please, please! Please stop trying to convince us that what it takes to rank for desirable keyphrases are meta tags. You can keep bumping this thread (and others) to try to make your point for forever and a day, and we'll still not be convinced of something that simply is not so.

Quite frankly, I think it's high time to finally put this whole thing to rest.

[nielsencl]

This is what I got for the counts at Overture:

boston maps 5887
mbta map 252
boston t map 416
subway boston 1251
mbta maps 252
map of boston 5887
mbta subway map 31
subway in boston 1251
subway map boston 526
map of boston t 416
map boston t 416
mbta map boston 127
boston subway 1251
boston subway map 526

Looks like a pretty good list to me to use in optimization, but I never worry about rankings, just qualified trafffic.

[Marcia]

This is what the text-only cache looks like:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...GLD:en&strip=1

And 754 sites competing - and one lone Ebay broad match Adwords ad running - is not what's considered competitive.

Try it for boston car rental with 35K competing, or boston hotels with 94 million pages competing for the exact match, and then you've got something competitive because they make money for people.

Anyone want to check what the figures are for the exact match for allinanchor: to see how many are actually pursuing the search terms?

Basically, people put up sites to make money, unless they're strictly informational sites. Since this is being discussed in the Search Engine Optimization Forum, let's get our definitions clear about what is or isn't competitive, which is generally parallel to how much income is possible for given search terms.

[rockcoastmedia]

Marcia,

It seems as if you are a bit jayded against Flash sites entirely. Perhaps you were burned in the past by trying to get a Flash site to rank. Honestly, I don't know.

I have had some success with Flash sites, though I fully admit I have had much more success getting pure HTML sites ranking higher. I would also add that I have not said once that the traditional meta tags will help your ranking, what I have said is that the meta description tag has a lot to do with your click rate. If you don't have a good meta description, no one will click on your link no matter how high you rank.

In addition, competitive is a relative term. You try to bring up searches for Boston car rental of 35k, but that may or may not have been the goal the web site. The site may be targeted to students or tourists in the Boston area and they very well would look for subway maps, or Boston maps etc. The site may also have many different goals in mind for a conversion. Perhaps a conversion is a sale, but it can also be as simple as filling out a form for more info or something else.

[Marcia]

what I have said is that the meta description tag has a lot to do with your click rate. If you don't have a good meta description, no one will click on your link no matter how high you rank.

The point is that no one will even see the meta description to be able to click on it if a site is so poorly constructed that it can't get crawled and therefore rank enough to even be seen in lucrative searches. No rankings = no clicks, regardless of how pretty the prose.

It seems as if you are a bit jayded against Flash sites entirely.

Trust me, it isn't just me. Have you read what ALL the other people in this and other forums say about Flash with search engine listings?

Perhaps you were burned in the past by trying to get a Flash site to rank.

Never, ever. I learned right off the bat that sites that want to get decent search engine rankings should avoid Flash sites. They don't need "movies" they need web pages - which are HTML according to the W3C. A movie is not a web page - it's a movie, and the internet is not a theater.

Quite frankly, I think that anyone who is trying to promote their services based on a sales pitch that Flash sites are compatible with getting decent s/e listings that they can make money with is coming pretty close to trying to exploit newbies to the net who don't know any better. And also, trying to take advantage of a gap that no one else is trying to fill because it doesn't work.

No, I haven't been burned, but I've been around search engine and webmaster forums for 6 years and have seen plenty of posts from innocent people who wasted their money on sites that didn't work. IMHO a far more honest and ethical approach is to tell the truth about the serious limitations rather than try to sell services by avoiding the truth of the matter.

Sorry, it's an aggressive sales pitch but I'm not buying it. If anyone else wants to that's their privilege. But to be perfectly honest, I think it's time to stop bumping this thread to keep arguing in favor of it; there's been quite enough said for anyone to see both sides - not to mention all the other MANY threads started on the topic lately.

[mtweed]

Although this will through more fuel on the fire, I feel it needs mentioning. Seo has lost some of its impact, as the way people find sites and the information they seek changes. I say "find" because, although search is still a necessary tool, the internet savvy crowd have moved on to other means of discovery; rss, blogs, social networking (a term I dislike) and other developing technologies. No longer do we go out and surf the net; the net comes to us.

Content is what the masses want and consume, in the way they want it, as well as where they want it. Flash is only part of the increasing demand for multimedia on the web. We, as web designers, will need to adapt, or get put out to pasture.

[Chris_D]

rockcoastmedia & animal57,

SEO 101 Link anchor text can make a site - irrespective of the technology used to build the page - irresepective of whether the page itself is accessible - rank for whatever the anchor text says.

e.g. miserable failure http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=miserable+failure words don't appear on the page at all

Nike Australia http://www.google.com/search?num=100...nike+australia All flash

flash games http://www.google.com/search?num=100...&q=flash+games Orisinal : Morning Sunshine all flash