FLASH WEBSITES & SEARCH ENGINGE OPTIMIZATION

Flash websites get an undeserved bad rap from some web designers/developers because they claim that Flash isn’t search engine friendly. Back in the day Flash was just embedded on a page and Google spiders had no way of crawling any content. But with the invention of SWFObject, Google now has a way of reading and crawling the content.

What is SWFObject?

SWFObject is a Javascript library that has been around severals years and allows you to provide alternative HTML content for Search Engine Optimization purposes. It also allows Google spiders to craw the HTML content, resulting in better page rank for your Flash website.

Is this a green light for creating all websites in flash?

No it isn’t. Flash should only be used on websites that will have alot of interaction/movements or websites that are heavy in graphics and make use of video.

Another thing to keep in mind when using Flash is that some mobile devices do not have Adobe’s Flash Player. So if your a big Iphone or Ipad user and want your website to be viewable on those devices then Flash may not be your best option, unless you create a fall back website that is created using your standard HTML/CSS. SWFObject can allow users that do not have Adobe’s Flash Player be redirected to a standard HTML website when viewing on those devices.

There are many options that are possible when creating a website. Some prefer your standard HTML website and other prefer websites created in Flash. The purpose of this short article was to inform your that Flash is search engine friendly when used in conjunction with SWFObject.

Posted on : August 13th, 2011