Is Flash SEO friendly

[KevinS]

I've heard that Flash might not be so SEO friendly because of the time it takes to load up. Is this just a myth of should I stay away from Flash if I want to effectively use SEO?

[[Paul Ferrie ]]

Check this out: flashandseo

[johnmethew]

yes flash loading time matters for SEO and also the important thing is that google crawler could not understand the flash scripting.

[[Paul Ferrie ]]

Something else to check out
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/...awl-flash.html

[webdiv]

Hi Guys

First I must say that I am not a web developer as such and a lot of this stuff is over my head.

I develop my own web site and recently changed from a conventional html site to one based upon flash through a hosting package. It seems that my site has slipped on Google since I did this.

Can you say in simple terms if Flash is detrimental to my seo ? Should I go back to html ?

One thing I did notice with this package is that unlike before I cannot attach alt tags to all of my images e.g. contained within a slide show, whereas before every picture had an alt and title tag. Perhaps this is not good for the bots ?

I'd really appreciate some easy to understand and poignant advice.

Thanks

[pfurey101]

Remember that the search engines only read the source code and ignore images and flash as it cannot read the embedded text.

So, one page SEO is determined by your source code.

It is also important to have as much css and javascript offpage and all the ON PAGE stuff is read and effects this part of SEO.

Cheers
Paul

[snik]

The best practice is to use combination of HTML and Flash.
Flash for human and HTML for search enginges.
You can dublicate all texts in invisible DIVs.
If the DIV contains the same text as Flash then it is not forbidden.

[egrovesystems]

Originally Posted by johnmethew

yes flash loading time matters for SEO and also the important thing is that google crawler could not understand the flash scripting.

Yes, as you mentioned here , there are low effect for SEO by using Flash. This will show you the best attraction but wont help for SEO in anyway.

[cncoder]

traditional SEO believe Google has problem to understand flash
Google claimed they have made great progress in understanding flash
but my personal experience is if your site is all flash, you can't rank high in Google

[Jacobhine]

No, flash cannot be SEO friendly. Serch engine spider never like that your website use more flash. When you use more flash in your website it increase your page load time and it obviously become the reason to not index your website. However you can use flash when you need but you must avoid the use of flash as much as possible.

[[Paul Ferrie ]]

you must avoid the use of flash as much as possible.

Rather harsh words. I have several full flash sites and there is no problem with them ranking on google(first page).

Like every other tool for developing website flash has it's place. To say "avoid using it as much as possible" can only come from someone that does not truly understand flash to begin with. HTML5 is sure not raising any eyebrows yet.

[nick4u1]

I think HTML5 would be interesting when it starts to reach maturity as it will be able to offer the same visual experience as flash but also be very seo friendly.