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[edited by: agerhart at 2:17 pm (utc) on May 21, 2003]
[edit reason] No URLs please, per WebmasterWorld TOS [/edit]
Start by reading up on how search engines work - at a fundamental level, they parse out the text of a document - so Flash websites generally don't don't do so well, because of the lack of indexable content.
Next, it's not uncommon to wait as many as two or more months before a brand new site shows up in Google, or any major search engine. A listing in Yahoo / dmoz.org will help the site show up, as well as links from more established websites relating to the content of the site you are working on.
Lastly, read every forum here about marketing, search engine promotion, etc.
If the client expects results now Google has Adwords, Inktomi has a pay for inclusion program that respiders pages every 48 hours, and there are other quick options too like Overture, FindWhat, PFI with Ask Jeeves, Altavista, etc.
Selling stuff online - you have to pick & chose the right marketing mix for the clients goals & demographics. Simply submitting the site around to the search engines - will not accomplish a whole lot.
I have a lot of text hidden in the body, using hide tags and also in the same colour as the background
Is this a wind up?!
If you're genuine, I would suggest that you need a very thorough read of these forums for a few weeks before embarking on a complete site redesign.
TJ
Let's assume it isn't, though im surprised 981 knows a lot about flash sites indexability but nothing yet on hidden text.
981Deluxe. hidden text is a major reason for not being indexed, and google is on a mission right now on it.
Delete all hidden text, and rely on metatags, titles, and text that you can put "around" the flash content, and incoming links.
A site search for "hidden text" will reveal all!
I'd suggest you do a little digging and a lot of reading. There's a wealth of information here.
TJ
I take the view that this is not cloaking or spamming because many people either don't enable scripting or don't have the required version of the player, and I take care to make sure I replicate the textual part of the Flash content accurately. Since only a small percentage of visitors (though still large numerically) will not see the Flash content I don't worry too much about how it looks so long as the basic content is there, and it doesn't take too long to do either. As far as I know, the content inside the NOSCRIPT tags is read by the robots, and the text-only pages help to build up Google PageRank.
Hope this helps a fellow Flash developer. If you want more info, please post back here.
Patrick
ps: your auto-load might get you into difficulty
Cloaking and certain kinds of spamming don't necessarily prevent you getting listed and ranked. They only raise the risk of you being banned if found out. And the reason you don't appear in Google could be completely unrelated to any of this!
Patrick
1.0 Your title, keywords, description and keyword density. The research you have already done will be important to get this right. e.g. number of keywords, length of description, etc.
2.0 Since Google picks up the ODP directory database on a regular basis, make sure your site meets the guidelines of the ODP before submitting it to DMOZ, so that you know it will get listed as soon as an editor has time to review it. If you get listed here it will help.
3.0 BUT ... Spend most of your time ensuring that good sites link to yours. Do a search on Google using the keywords that you'd like to be recognised for, and send e-mails to the webmasters, requesting a link, to those that you think would. You may find that you have to send many e-mails to be eventually included in only a handful of sites, but many hours invested here is really important.
4.0 Also - find good sites to link to, trade associations, large plc's with good PR with relevancy to your site sector. (P.S. Google can follow your Flash links).
We have found that even a 100% Flash site using only title and meta tags get good results, if everything else is in place. E.g. One site is position 7 out of 95,000 results on Google using a single (and relevant) keyword search. ahead of many other sites with embedded HTML text.
Good luck - and stick to your Flash!
P.S. If you think about it Flash users shouldn't be penalized for using this technology, or have to use other techniques (e.g. create a bit of html code for the sake of it) just to get high PR should we?
P.P.S. Also interesting to note that we have one page that does very well, purely in Flash, with only a title and relevant domain name ....
<a href="java script:void" onclick= "window.open('http://www.somesite.com/');
return false;">
Patrick
Once your site is listed, and you are ranked, my personal thinking is that pointing to high quality sites with PR greater than yours doesn't lose PR.
There's a discussion on this board which might help, and plenty of other thoughts about linking by many other contributors, on the board too ..
Good luck.
[webmasterworld.com...]
Thanks for all the advice guys. Since I last posted on this topic, I got the site listed on a good few small search engines and managed to get a little feature on the site and a couple of links from a few of the big noise sites in business (guest houses etc). I also managed to get a listing on the open directory, and literally, about three days later the site was appearing on google.
Now Im not sure exactly what was the answer, was it the good quality links, me manually submitting to google, or getting a listing on the open directory? I would imagine it was a combination of things, but I'd like to know for future reference.
Then, today when I checked, its suddenly gone off gogle! Now I just read a thread there that said that this is normal when a site is first indexed and it may take time to stabilise.
Also when I say the site is appearing on google, i only mean that its coming up on a url search of the site, I dont even know how many pages back in google it is, if even there!
So now I need to start looking at moving up the ranks on google as opposed to getting indexed by it initially. Anybody got any ideas of a good thread to start on?
Thanks in advance,
Tom
...and the curve is Mt Everest. :^)
You will soon find that SEO is a full time excercise in frustration.
I understand this accidental transgression has now been removed, but it was there plenty long enough to be spidered and trip a spam filter to earn a ban/penalty particularly from Google.
If a hidden text ban/penalty is in place it could take several months to get parole and for the URL to get listed at all let alone ranked competitively.
This is where a discussion about Grey bar, White bar and PR0 normaly starts.
In my search to find sites to get linked from in my site promotion campaign, I have some across a "Link Promoter" tool by some company Apex Pacific (apologies if I shouldnt be using names) , now I after reading the google literature on linking issues I am aware that a dodgy linking campaign could harm the situation, but this product seems to be fairly valid in that it searches for sites that would be beneficial to recieve a link from and that would in turn benefit from your links (obviously sites in the same business). Just wondering are there any thoughs on this type of thing in general, or has anybody experience with the product?
tom
