Optimizing Flash Websites for Search Engines
by: Admin
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It?s widely known, in the internet marketing world that search engine don't like Flash sites. Flash content has been in the past hard to read and rank for the search engines. Times are changing, however. Flash websites are now easier to get index and rank than ever before.
Flash Can Be Indexed
The legend that Flash files cannot be indexed is still around, just like the myth that framed sites can't be indexed. All of these facts are not true anymore. In 2004, Macromedia released its Software Development Kit (SDK), making it doable for the major search engines to index content inside Flash files. Search engines can now convert the Flash files to HTML and can even follow links embedded in Flash.
This may seem like you can just treat your Flash files as HTML, but this doesn't work that well. There are numerous issues to consider. For instance, when converting Flash files into HTML, search engines will use the first words on the page for their search result titles instead of your HTML title. (Flash recently added title and description fields, but not all search engines support them yet). Also, entire sites contained in a single Flash file are harder to index and rank.
What Can Be Done About Flash?
If you're just starting to build your site, we recommend using Flash carefully. Search engines are significant for traffic and using Flash creates pointless obstacles. Can your site do well without Flash or just use Flash embedded in HTML files? Few sites absolutely need to be created in Flash.
There are, however, instances when the site needs to be Flash. For some web designers and photographers, using Flash is part of providing their users the experience they expect and support. If you're in this condition, there are still ways you can optimize your Flash site:
1. Use Flash files within HTML pages
if you can, use Flash files as part of your HTML pages instead of creating purely Flash sites. This will help because you can optimize the HTML title, meta tags and other content placed on the page.
2. Use multiple Flash files
Instead of using a single Flash file to create your entire site, use multiple files, as you would with HTML. A single Flash file gives you the advantage of faster load times, but spiders will have a harder time indexing the entire thing.
3. Use new Flash features
the latest version of Flash lets you to input meta data and a title right into the Flash file. Although search engines may not fully support this yet, chances are they will ultimately. Use this new opportunity to add keyword-rich information about your site.
4. Use Flash tools to see your text
The Macromedia Flash Developer Kit allows any webmasters to output text from their SWF files and see how it will be viewed by the search engines (the tool is called swf2html). This is a very useful feature that can give you insight into how your pages are seen. Visit Adobe's site for more information.
Creating an HTML Alternative
Even though Flash files can be optimized, it's clearly easier to create an HTML alternative. Having a Flash-free version will benefit not only search engines, but your users as well. If your resources and business permit, we recommend creating an HTML version to complement your Flash site.
About the Author
Source: http://www.searchengines.com
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