Ever wondered on how to deal with SEO for your website when it is build using Flash? The only piece of advice possible in this case is to keep it something in the middle of what the website visitors are going to see and what it looks like to Googlebot. Because if you don’t, you’re likely to have your site appearing suspicious to Google’s algorithms. This includes cloaking, hidden text in metatags, Javascript redirects, doorway pages, over numbered hidden keyword listings. Here is a couple of practical pieces of advice by Google’s engineers:
- Limit the use of Flash only to where there’s nothing can exist instead of it. This basically means that one should use Flash for the rich media accents on the page, not the content or navigation. This also expands your website’s audience to those who have non-standard browsers, those whose bandwidth’s limited (like PDA users or a people using cell phones), visually impaired visitors using screen readers, etc. Additional pro towards this method is visitors can use bookmarks and e-mail links to your site’s pages to their friends.
- Some full flash websites utilize the Flash technology to force browser to show headers, pull quotes and/or other text elements with a font that might not be installed at user’s computer. A sIFR technique allows non-Flash readers read a page, since the content and navigation is still in the HTML – it’s basically displayed by an embedded Flash object.
- Use of alternative versions of the site. Another way you can see the Flash used is a front page “into page” where the URL of a website has the flash intro that links to HTML content further into the site. Using this technique, make sure your visitor can navigate into the website (as well as the Googlebot) without the need of Flash.
To sum up although flash websites do look very attractive they would not be fully recommended for SEO purposes.
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