Is it all just a little too flash?

use of flash on homepage- how little is too much?

[edit_g]

One of our sites has a search on the homepage. Currently it is javascripted up to the hilt and it takes a good while to load (fine on broadband but there is a little wait on 56k).

We've come up with a solution that involves a flash search. We take the info from a txt file which is pre-loaded as the search parameters are requested. So the search loads nothing at all (apart from initial values) before you select something and then it only loads what you selected. It is a great space saver and makes the load go much faster. For non-flash users (all 5% of them) there is a link to a search page.

Now. Google. Will this bother google at all? It is only a small component of a page with plenty of text on it. Will googlebot just ignore it and spider on? Or will googlebot stop and say: "hey! Flash! I hate flash! I'm going somewhere else". I'm thinking that it will be fine. Any opinions?

[muesli]

why should google hate flash? a flash component is just another webpage part. google even indexes .swf files.

see this thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[edit_g]

It is my understanding that Google will only index url's from flash files...

[jady]

edit_g ---> We have been using Flash for years and have had no probalems with it hindering our websites in google. Google does pull the .swf files, but it really does not follow the links within the swf.. (At least I dont belive so). So a safe bet is to include a sitemap, or navgation at the bottom of each page of the site.

To answer your question, flash does not hinder any of our sites nor our Clients websites. When used "correctly" and sparringly, you actually find a great "medium" that catches the search engine spider as well as your visitors eye!

I hate nothing more then to come to a "tweaked/optimized" site that has big ugly text all over, small/poor quaility images and no interactivity.

Good luck!