Should I allow this flash movie or not?

to flash or not to flash, that is the question

[nevdev]

I've just designed a website with the same flash movie on every page, as a sort of header, and I'm wondering what people think of doing this. There are so many warnings coming from everywhere about flash, I hardly know whether to put it up or not. I don't usually use flash, but this one looks quite good, and I thought maybe I'd like to keep it.

The flash movie appears at the top of the page, though it doesn't load first: I wrote the CSS so that the flash code actually appears last, immediately before the closing body tag.

I have made an alternative non-flash version of the site, with a CSS rollover image instead of the flash movie. But I'm still not sure how to proceed. The things I'd like to ask are these:

1. Will the fact that the flash code loads almost at the end of the page solve the supposed SEO problems with 'unreadable' flash movies?

2. Is there any *worthwhile* way to detect flash and send the user to the non-flash page/site, if the player isn't installed? I say "any worthwhile way", because I can't see the point of the ways that check just at the "index.html" or "entrance" part of the site: surely if my SEO works then visitors might "land" on any one of a number of pages on the site, yes? If this is right, then I would need to check unobtrusively for flash on every page? Is this possible - or practical? Would search engines like Google not index the site when they encounter *any* redirection method?

[Richard_N]

IMHO a flash header is fine but only on the front page, and not including the navigation...

Make a static version of the flash image and include this within the object tag

<img src="noflash.jpg" alt="you need to install flash to view the header" />

This provides a substitute image should flash not be available ont he viewers machine.

Also use the static image on all the other pages as a constantly refreshing animated header is a pain in the **** after a while.