Looking for feedback on our new Flash SEO tool

[sixside]

Long time lurker here -- finally had something to contribute!

I just wrote up an article on our company blog about a new SEO tool I developed to optimize Flash websites for search engines. I'd like to hear any feedback that you experts may have, or any questions from the community.

Thanks

Flash SEO article here:

[beu]

I know this is not what you want to hear but, providing "alternative" text is not a function of the div tag. Invisible div layers violate Google site quality guidelines. In addition to returning different content to search engines you are returning different URLs to search engines.

vw.com was cautioned about this same technique and forced to make changes to their site just last month.
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com...e-updates.html
http://searchengineland.com/070503-121944.php
http://www.cartoonbarry.com/2007/05/...wagen_plu.html


Google updated their webmaster guidelines last week to include the following:
"Cloaking, sneaky Javascript redirects, and doorway pages

Cloaking
Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to users and search engines. Serving up different results based on user agent may cause your site to be perceived as deceptive and removed from the Google index.

Some examples of cloaking include:

* Serving a page of HTML text to search engines, while showing a page of images or Flash to users."
http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=66355

[sixside]

It's not cloaking at all.

It's the EXACT same text that renders in the Flash movie.

And the only reason it's inside of a div is because it's the same div that Flash lives inside of. The div isn't even hidden via CSS. It's completely accessible regardless of the user agent.

[Marcia]

It's pretty clear in the guidelines about NOT serving different content to bots, regardless of what's in the Flash movie. It's as specific as it can get and says nothing about content hidden from human users in a <div> being OK, regardless of non-crawlable content.

If someone chooses to use certain methods for their own use, that's their choice and responsibility; but until the engines give the nod to practices instead of having contrary instructions saying not to follow such practices, it isn't too good an idea to encourage others to do the same.

[sixside]

What we are doing is really no different than linking to an XML file (which search engines DO index). XHTML == XML. They are both just markup languages. Flash is using a config.xml file built it could just as easily use config.html. Markup is markup is markup.

And since we are NOT serving different content to bots, it's all kosher. Everyone gets the EXACT same content. A bot can't index an audio file, nor a video file, and if it can't index the Flash file... how is that any different?

[sixside]

Originally Posted by Marcia

...until the engines give the nod to practices instead of having contrary instructions saying not to follow such practices, it isn't too good an idea to encourage others to do the same.

So you think they have to explicitly state this publicly? Or can they just 'say' it via their actions of indexing a site and giving it a respectable ranking?

[sixside]

Hopefully the mods will let me post the link in a non-linked form so that people following the thread can at least reference what we are discussing:


(insert http:// before that URL (no www))

[MattUK]

I'd have to second Marcia's comments. I'd feel distinctly uncomfortable using hidden divs to serve text on a client site, even if that text was included in a flash animation.

I'm sure 99 times out of 100 it would be fine, but that's still not a risk I'd be prepared to take with someones website.

[sixside]

Originally Posted by MattUK

I'd feel distinctly uncomfortable using hidden divs...

Define "hidden divs" please.

[beu]

Originally Posted by sixside

Define "hidden divs" please.

Remove your external CSS and see for yourself.

It is not the flash that is ranking it is the hidden html that search engines don't know users can't see.

Another example, the word "buzz" is not in the code of leadership.html#featuredProjects but is the third word on the page. So, the content seen by users with flash is different than what is seen by search engines.

Also, users are directed to leadership.html#leadership while search engines are directed to leadership.html. Even if technically in some ways they are the same URL, users can't see the later because it is in a DIV tag which is hidden via the external CSS.

Again, apples can't provide milk and DIV tags can't provide alternative content! Alternative content is provided by the ALT tag hence the name ALT being short for "alternative".

"Some examples of cloaking include:

* Serving a page of HTML text to search engines, while showing a page of images or Flash to users."
http://www.google.com/support/webma...py?answer=66355

DIVs are html, Flash is Flash and search engines are seeing the HTML text while users see all Flash. It seems pretty clear given the example of cloaking above.

[sixside]

Originally Posted by beu

Remove your external CSS and see for yourself.

With all CSS styles removed, the Flash still loads just fine. There is nothing 'hidden' about the divs used.

[sixside]

Do you all seriously think that the great Google (aka Do No Evil Inc.) would penalize a website for making a website accessible to those that do not have the Flash plugin installed? How about the 10-million vision impaired people (in the US alone) or people that prefer to use browsers like Lynx? Are we the site owners just supposed to tell those people that are SOL?

There would be a HUGE public outrage if search engines started penalizing site owners for just trying to make their content accessible to everyone. Doing so goes against everything the web is fundamentally about.

I realize this forum is a SEO forum, but step back for a second and think of the bigger picture of accessibility. An accessible site is naturally going to be a search engine friendly site -- and that's never going to be a bad thing.

[sixside]

Originally Posted by beu

Another example, the word "buzz" is not in the code of leadership.html#featuredProjects but is the third word on the page. So, the content seen by users with flash is different than what is seen by search engines.

The word "buzz" as you describe is not part of the <snip>, it's part of the <snip> featuredProjects page[/url]. Everything after the pound sign is simply designed to make the site bookmarkable and allow people to deep-link into the Flash site on subsequent visits since it will override whatever page is hard coded into the html file as the default.

It's no different than a querystring parameter, except it doesn't force a page refresh in the browser.

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Mod note - edit reason in msg#7 in this thread:

Last edited by SanDiegoSEO : Today at 07:09 AM. Reason: I've deleted the URL twice now. please, dont make me do it again

[SanDiegoSEO]

Originally Posted by sixside

Do you all seriously think that the great Google (aka Do No Evil Inc.) would penalize a website for making a website accessible to those that do not have the Flash plugin installed? How about the 10-million vision impaired people (in the US alone) or people that prefer to use browsers like Lynx? Are we the site owners just supposed to tell those people that are SOL?

There would be a HUGE public outrage if search engines started penalizing site owners for just trying to make their content accessible to everyone. Doing so goes against everything the web is fundamentally about.

I realize this forum is a SEO forum, but step back for a second and think of the bigger picture of accessibility. An accessible site is naturally going to be a search engine friendly site -- and that's never going to be a bad thing.

Google tells you not to build your site entirely in Flash so that users CAN access the information.

[sixside]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSEO

Google tells you not to build your site entirely in Flash so that users CAN access the information.

No, they actually tell you to "create HTML copies of these Flash pages for our crawler" which is precisely what we are doing.

[beu]

Originally Posted by sixside

With all CSS styles removed, the Flash still loads just fine. There is nothing 'hidden' about the divs used.

Here is a concept, if you can't see it it's hidden.

Ok, now go to your homepage.

Look at your homepage.

Do you see "Website & Flash Development by BLITZ an Interactive Advertising Agency"?

No! Why because it is hidden. That sentence includes two links to your site which were obviously made for search engines. Guess what, it's in a div called "x" and not one called "alternative content" and it's an H3. Obviously spam wouldn't you say? It has to be right, because it is not hidden in a DIV called "alternative content"? This is but one example!

Come on, please don't waste our time and by the way please don't use "click here" as link text even when it's hidden.
http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/noClickHere

[Marcia]

There is a BIG difference between an alternative HTML page for accessibility and crawlers and a <div> hidden using CSS.

[Marcia]

You may want to consider creating HTML copies of these Flash pages for our crawler. If you create HTML copies, please be sure to include a robots.txt file that disallows the Flash pages in order to ensure that our crawler doesn't recognize these pages as duplicate content.

These PAGES, plural. Two pages are not one page with a hidden div on the one page. Sorry, but using a twisted interpretation in order to market a product, whether it's intentional or not, just doesn't hold water when it comes to either marketing or search engine best practices.

And please note that in order to not be outright cloaking the "normal" way by serving a different page to crawlers and users, the two pages are to be accessible, not using user agent or IP sniffing to deliver different content to the two.

[beu]

Originally Posted by sixside

Do you all seriously think that the great Google (aka Do No Evil Inc.) would penalize a website for making a website accessible to those that do not have the Flash plugin installed? How about the 10-million vision impaired people (in the US alone) or people that prefer to use browsers like Lynx? Are we the site owners just supposed to tell those people that are SOL?

Think about it this way, your site is currently not accessible to billions of users because Flash only supports 10 languages. Google on the other hand supports more than 100 different languages.

So, what was that you said about being evil?

[Marcia]

There's really no issue other than what's pertinent to whether a technique is acceptable to Google per their webmaster guidelines or falls within the realm of search engine spam.

Presenting content to crawlers that's intended to be hidden from human viewers is in no way sanctioned in the webmaster guidelines, which clearly state otherwise. A hidden <div> is clearly intended to be hidden. What more is there to say?

So as indicated by the thread title, looking for feedback, the white hat feedback has been given.