Script:

Welcome

Most SEO consultants will suggest that flash is not search engine friendly and cannot be indexed.

Although a HTML site will naturally perform better in search engines than a flash site, this doesn’t necessarily mean that flash is ignored all together.

We have developed methods of integrating flash so that a user and search engines can see it.

Step 1.) Embedding the flash file:

Google actually provides flash embed code at its code.google.com website and recommends that you use SWF Object to embed your flash.

This method also complies with w3c standards.

Step 2.) Ensure you use your IE hacks:

It is important that you use the ie hacks provided via HTML comments, otherwise you will see a blank space in IE.

Step 3.) Adding content to your flash file:

Again SEO consultants often think that only dynamic text within flash gets indexed, again not true as your will see shortly. Our recommendation is to ensure that the text within your flash file has been written in flash and is not imagery.

Step 4.) Object Title

You can also give your object a title, like in most HTML you can name your flash file, be honest with your title tho.

We will show you an example looking at Creares flash file, it has been indexed by Google.

URL: http://www.seo-creare.co.uk/bounce.swf

You can also see that the content within the flash file has been indexed.

Conclusion - You can actually specifically search for just flash file using the following string: filetype:swf

With the SEO industry expanding their are lots of companies that can offer their services, Creare included. Some websites perform better in search engines than others, this is often due to the sites architecture. Static pages, domain age, backward links and domain name can all help towards an SEO campaign. I have complied a list below of things that will set you in good shape for an SEO campaign as well as things that may mean that your website will need to be re-build from your search engine optimisation company.

Things to look for:

• ? marks in URL’s, This means that the page is a DB (database) query and can often restrict the performance of your site, Google and other major search engines do not rank these types of pages very highly. This can be fixed by converting them to permalinked (SEO friendly) extension. Most developers would provide this functionality, but otherwise it may have to be a rebuild.
• Automated Meta Data & Page Titles, If your site automatically generates Meta data via a CMS (content management system) it can often cause issues, Search engines will see them as unusable and not accurate. This can also be fixed via certain development techniques.
• Domain Age, if you have a brand new site and you want to optimise for a hugely competitive phrase you can often run the risk of the ‘sandbox‘. If Google thinks a site has been unnatural with its development and growth (i.e. an SEO company building pages and links) you can be removed from the search results. The older the domain the better, but nothing is impossible you just have to consider the time scales.
• Flash Websites, flash websites can look great but the content will not be correctly read by search engines, you firstly have to ensure that your flash website is coded properly and that google can find a text based version of your site, otherwise it will not find anything. Also flash websites are usually based on 1 page, meaning as far as Google can see your site has no depth or additional content.
• Frames, if you have a HTML site (not flash) and you browse through your site you can usually see the URL extension changing as you go, if it remains the root URL on everypage, the site has been set up using frames and the search engine will not be able to define your specified sitemap.
• Domain names, A keyword rich domain name is great, but a domain that is 100 characters long full of keywords isn’t.

With both Google and Yahoo developing methods of successfully indexing flash, we will see the birth of search engine friendly flash web sites. You can already preform a flash search on google but they do not rank highly in general searches, even if they are extremely relevant.

To perform a flash search in Google just add a .swf extension to your search, You will then see that the results returned display [flash] in front of them. The returned results are not brilliant but i guess it is still under development.

Now lets talk search engine optimization. Is it a positive thing that Search Engines can index your flash? And does the indexing just happen with static text or can dynamic text be read? My main concern it that you can pretty much say what you wish in flash files and it will have no bearing on your SEO. But what about if you have information that might cause conflict with your optimisation?

What i mean by this is that the content of your site might be aimed towards a certain phrase, but you still want to mention a different service on your flash, will this water down your seo? will it effect your ranking? Most probably not, As most optimizers know the current algorithm focuses various aspects of a site meaning a slight addition piece of text will not effect a listing.