Flash Websites

Any advice?

[bostonseo]

Here's my clients' dilemma. 4 months ago she had a very nice basic .html site and was ready to pay me to optimize it for her but she backed out saying she really doesn't have the money. And I wasn't going to charge her much at all. She emails me yesterday saying they have a new website and have the money now to optimize it. So I look at her website and it is very beautiful...but it's flash. I have no flash SEO experience. Can it be optimized? Any advice greatly appreciated.

[martinibuster]

Can it be optimized?
No.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

The only choices I see are either they pay you to tell them the bad news or you give it to them for free.

[pleeker]

I suppose a 3rd choice would be to develop a non-Flash version of the site.

[cyberfyber]

Well, to date there's no such thing as Flash SEO...'least not that I know of.

As for whomever designed the site for this person. I'll bet she's realising after the fact that having it in Flash gets her nowhere in as far as the SEs are concerned.

I'd try and see if she's got the needed files for the original site you mentioned, of course after breaking the bad news.

[PatrickDeese]

I have an advertiser that decided to go 100% flash - and then came to me to optimize it after 3 months of no show in G.

I told them there's nothing to be done, except make an HTML alternative - but their flash designer disagreed with me and slapped invisible text across the bottom of every page and using techniques from one of those FFA type website promo sites.

Now I am waiting for their site to go grey bar so I can charge them more.

[Opie1Canopie]

The only thing I can think of doing in the interim is to use optimised keywords in the links within the flash file(s). Apparently Google does index these links so they could get some visibility.

I agree though - they just need to build an HTML version...

[Magnum_PI]

I've always also felt that flash was no good for SEO but I've been seeing a lot more flash sites in SERPS this year.

[quarantine]

What I do is:
Use Javascript to detect if flash player is present.
In <noscript> tags have a load of the text used in the flash movie, also a link to an html version built in frames.
In that frameset I have some <noframes> tags, in those tags goes, guess what? more text.

THE most important thing of all is the <title>

[bakedjake]

Cloak it.

[Merranvo]

Well besides making the site in HTML, you could "enhance" the aspects of it already, if there isn't a preloader, add one, if there isn't a background music, add it, if the site is absolutly perfict, add a flashy curser so they pay you to remove it. But that is not the point. Even if their site is in flash, there are millions of things that can be done to improve on it, even if they aren't so obvious.

[sidyadav]

> Cloak it.

Yup. I think that's a very evil but cunning option :)

I'm having a similar problem with one of my clients, so we will be using cloaking to 'fool' search engine spiders. Should work.

Sid

[skibum]

It the site is multiple pages and not just one single Flash file, a static site map can work well.

[Yellow281]

Hmm this thread has made me concerned.. my site is being built primarily in flash.. youre saying this makes it difficult for search engines to find it? I suddenly feel ill...

:)

Kate

[HelenDev]

Hmm this thread has made me concerned..

Well, my initial thought when I saw this thread was...

Flash Websites
Any advice?

Yeah, Don't.

[Yellow281]

Whats this cloaking thou speaketh of!

[bakedjake]

[webmasterworld.com...]

You should know, if you are new to the SEO space, that cloaking is frowned upon by the search engines. They say "don't do it".

That said, it works well if you're intelligent about how to do it.

[Harry]

Goggle is actually very good now with Flash contents. The best way to build a Flash site is to break it into several pages and insert proper titles within those pages, as well as a basic HTMl menu at the bottom. That usually solves any problems. Just don't creat one big file that loads everything.

[Chris_D]

Flash Websites
Any advice?

Build your website using any technology you like - but understand the limitations of the technology - and make your choices.

My opinion is the limitations of flash far outweigh the benefits in terms of being found in search engines.

If you have the budget to pay per click for every customer who visits your site - rather than being found in Google - then use Flash. But like many others - I surf with ActiveX controls off - so I may click on your paid link and see nothing of your site anyway......

:)