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I've already done a search here, BTW : )
Thanks for advance for any help,
Josefu.
Oh, PS: a 'sorta funny' - if you try doing a search for any combination of words on the Macromedia site and one of them is 'Google' you risk turning up the entire site; at the bottom of every page is a 'powered by Google' gif whose "powered by Google" 'alt' tag turns up in any search you do.
I have an interactive site that pleases almost all who visit and would like to keep it the way it is. If I must provide for 'non-flash' browsers to please the robots, couldn't I show people what they're missing in the flash film (links AND text) through the <noembed> tag? Or could that be seen as having nothing to do with my flash movie and treated as cheating?
I don't want to make a 'paralell' pure HTML page because, aside from the duplicate content, it would be that one which would be listed in Google, not it's 'Flash daddy'.
I don't want to cheat or trick anyone, I want a site that's good both for my viewers and the search engines.
Thanks for any help at all, take care,
Josefu.
At some point in history, one of the SEs may have given some relevancy to this tag. Today, it is meaningless in the SEO/SEM scheme of things.
I should also state that comments are also being used by SEO/SEM providers who have seen these being used on other sites who may rank highly and don't know any better.
P.S. Comments are also used by some programs to execute server side scripting languages.
...also misleading is the fact that if you use the <!-- URL's used in the movie --> tag and insert '<a href> tags (the links, whot) afterwards, Dreamweaver links all accordingly and the hrefs show up green. Still I wonder, would those hrefs show up for a spider? I wish there was a way to test this.
Now that that's been brushed over, (grinning), how about those <noembed> tags? That I've seen virtually nothing about in all the web. Cheating? One should be able, like to those who don't use javascript, show content to those who don't use Flash...
Take care, thanks again for the reply,
Josefu.
Technique 6.3.1 [priority 1] Verify that the page is usable when programmatic objects are disabled.
Elements: SCRIPT, OBJECT type=@@?, EMBED, APPLET
Requirements: existence of "alt" and/or "title" and/OR accessible alternative content in the body of OBJECT, NOSCRIPT, NOEMBED, or APPLET.
Anytime issues or questions arise about certain elements, the first place I go to is the W3C/WAI/WCAG/Bobby/Cynthia Says etc. to see what they have to say about it.
Anytime you are using scripting, it is suggested that you provide alternative content for those who have scripting disabled or are using a browser that does not support the technology. As shown above, the <noembed> tag is included in that list of elements that require alternative content.
Cheating?
Not if you follow the guidelines for providing alternative content. Sure, there will be those who abuse the elements but there really isn't much else you can do. If the SEs decide not to give any relevancy to those areas, it does not matter if you are following the guidelines. It is not the SEs you need to be concerned with, but rather your visitors with limitations. If it is good for your visitors, I find it to be also good for the spider based SEs. ;)
<added>Always remember that what lies between those areas provided for alternative content should directly reflect its original content. These are not areas to stuff keywords. For one, if the keywords are not elsewhere on the page, I feel they are ignored, there need to be at least two instances of a keyword or phrase on a page before any effect is seen (keyword density).
Thanks a lot for that link - I've got some reading to do : )
Your "what's best for the users is good for the SE spiders" describes my goal very well, but the problem I've been having is deciding unto what level to provide - me with a Flash/DHTML site, making it 'visible' to non-javascript/non-Flash/non-image browsers (Lynx : ) is quite a task. Okay, Au bulot!
Thanks for the great help, take care,
Josefu
I read up (more than needed, but hey) and even the W3C site suggests that the only alternative to make a page containing flash content accessible to the visually impaired (and Macromedia also mentions it for people using smallscreen units for web browsing (SMS?)) is to use the <noembed> tag. Whew. Okay, it's official. But you told me that, right? : )
I tried it out and I am happy to say that it works fine in plug-inless IE and Netscape - safari doesn't get it, though. More disconcerting is the fact that Dreamweaver invalidates it (that ugly yellow) which led me to look up the syntax for using the tag - inside the IE destined 'Object' tags but after the closing </embed> tag around the flash file. Fine... but odd. There is almost no reference to the <noembed> tag on the net, and only in one help file on the Macromedia site.
Is there a reason for that? I can't be the first to bring up the issue, that tag has been around since NN 2.x!
I tested on the 'spider simulator' with great results but more on that later. My real problem is in the Dreamweaver way of treating that 'noembed' tag - like a leper! I had to look up what can and can't be done inside it, and everywhere I've looked says 'any content admissable withing a normal html <body> tag. Great, but Dreamweaver says that <p> and even <br> is not allowed within the <noembed> tag. Oh, and when I used the <!--URL's used in the movie --> tag to show the links contained in the Flash scene, Dreamweaver linked it all together quite nicely, but when I use the <noembed> tag it refuses to. Odd.
The purpose of the tag is to allow users with 'non-flash' browsers to see something in place of flash content - this I did to a tee (I even made it look nice : ) and it works on all browsers except Mac's Safari. This is because the <noembed> tag has been depreciated from the W3C consortium - but there is no 'acceptable' replacement alternative to this tag listed there! What gives?
So fine, my site is now accessible to non-javascript non-flash and non-image browsers and I've managed to keep it all on the same page - which makes me very happy. My doing this means that spiders should like my site as well - the 'spider sim' results were wonderful, with all of my text coming up. The same didn't happen when I tried the <!--text used in the movie --> technique. I read somewhere that a French Google 'employee' was not certain that google read the contents of the <noembed> tag - I hope to **** so because it's purpose is still legitimate because there are STILL no other 'noflash' solution alternative for older browsers. Making a pure HTML page will only bring users into 'non-flash' content if I want more than my front page indexed - and that would be annoying for both me and any visitors.
I am not writing this to whine, I am just wondering at the lack of support, even animosity, I see towards Flash content. I bought Studio because of my desire to present an interesting site for my visitor - am I to understand that I wasted my money because most search engines don't like Flash? If I missed something, pray tell : )
The burning question for me still is : can Google read the <noembed> tag, or does it consider using it as 'hiding text'?
I would love to start a Flash/Google topic here, would that be welcome? I'm sure I'm not the only one with problems.
