Search Engine Optimization and Flash
Flash content is fundamentally different from HTML on webpage URLs, and being able to parse links in the Flash code and text snippets does not make Flash search-engine friendly.
Some Reasons Why Include:
1.) Different Content is Not on Different URLs
You could have unique frames, movies within movies, etc. that appear to be completely unique portions of the Flash site, yet there’s no way to link to these individual elements.
2.) The Breakdown of Text
Google can index the output files in the SWF to see words and phrases, but in Flash, a lot of your text isn’t in nice clean <h1> or <p> tags, it’s jumbled up into half phrases for graphical effects and will often be outputted in the incorrect order.
3.) Flash Gets Embedded
A lot of Flash content is only linked-to by other Flash content wrapped inside shell Flash pages. This line of links, where no other internal or external URLs are referencing the interior content, means some very low PageRank/link juice documents. Even if they manage to stay in the main index, they probably won’t rank for anything.
4.) Testing ‘Crawlability’ with Hope
That’s what you’re doing with Flash content for SEO – hoping. Google’s Flash-crawling technology is proprietary, and while we all know and can test what search engines see from a content and link perspective in HTML, there’s no “test my site’s Flash file crawlability” feature.
5.) Flash Doesn’t Earn External Links Like HTML
Etiquette on the web simply doesn’t lend itself to Flash media earning link love. An all-Flash site might get a large number of links to the homepage, but interior pages almost always suffer.
6.) SEO Basics Are Often Missing
Anchor text, headlines, bold/strong text, img alt tags, and even title tags are not simple elements to properly include in Flash, and 9 times out of 10, the designer won’t build them in properly.
7.) A Lot of Flash Isn’t Even Crawlable
Google said they don’t execute external javascript calls (which many Flash-based sites use) or index the content from external files called by Flash (which, again, a lot of Flash sites rely on). These limitations could severely impact what a visitor can see vs. what Googlebot can index.
Of course, it is nice to see some Flash content ranking at Google (like for the query “break apart flash letters,” which illustrates point #2 above quite nicely). Just don’t let a Flash developer who just found out about Google’s new ability to crawl their work talk you into doing anything rash.
Related posts:
Web Design & Structure | seowhitehats | November 25, 2009
flash, google, HTML, Search Engine Optimization, Techniques & Trends
Thanks for the overview. We have typically avoided taking on flash sites for SEO. For some reason lately we have been getting more and more requests. Since we dont have much experience articles like this are really great.
This is a nice post for alerting beginners to the challenge Flash presents in terms of SEO. For now, if you are interested in building a website that will be highly trafficed, and HTML website is the way to go.
This may interest you: http://blog.flashcmsframework.com/category/fleb-framework/
It’s a front end full flash website framework I’ve created which gives Flash + SEO highest priority.
From what I’ve learnt from SEO point of view..flash site is not gonna rank high..
I never find a site that is using flash stay on top of se, maybe I’m wrong..I would very glad if someone can point me to any flash site that rank 1st on google..
thanks for writing friend.
I red twice your article and couldn’t find the solution; apparently, you didn’t mention it. I think it’s pretty easy to optimize flash sites, by simply adding html content “under” the flash. This will make content very friendly to search engines and users with flash disabled.
I never know that flash isn’t friendly to search engine. But, somehow I often check some sites that use flash as their main page. Page loading is one of google parameter now. This should be one consideration for flash sites.
thanks a lot. But i wantto more information for SEO.
Where am i read ?
Was contemplating on incorporating some flash elements into my websites but it seems to be a pointless endeavor if it will not help my search ranking. Thanks for the insight.