Div Tag with Flash - do it or not?

div tag how good are they with SE?

[dupac]

I have one flash page for users and it converts really well. I was thinking of adding text with div tag behind it so that it can be parsed by search engines.
Does SE see it as hidden text? how safe it is to use div tag to show text to SE but not to users?
Has anyone used this before? was it a success?

Appreciate your reply on this

[tedster]

There's a solid solution for offering Flash "alternative content" called SWFobject. Doing a site search here will turn up about 28 results discussing the details, and I know of several major sites using it successfully.

The SWFobject approach turns 'normal' thinking upside down -- it presents the html content as the default version,and then tests the user agent for Flash support. If it's there, then the script serves the swf file. The Flash-enabled end user sees no difference compared to the more ordinary approach, but the code is much more transparent to a spider. For example, it doesn't require a noscript element, and it does a great job testing the Flash support for version, suggesting version upgrades when necessary, and so on.

Just a word of caution: whenever your are serving a second version of any content via any techology, there may be a temptation to 'enhance' the version that the spider will see by default (to use deceptive cloaking, in other words.) It's much better to have identical content in both versions -- you do risk frying your rankings with any form of deception.

[Pirates]

Interesting so are you saying if the flash content does not relate to the default image shown in place of flash content if flash and javascript not installed it may be considered as cloaking?

[ashear]

From what I have read from Matt Cutts, this tactic is considered normal and advisable. As long as the following conditions are applied.

1).The content between the sources are EXACTLY the same.

2).The purpose behind this is to enable browsers with limitations to utilize the content you are providing. Section 508 accessibility is extremely important, not only to Google but people with disabilities.

I personally have friendships with younger people with visual impairments and I would greatly appreciate the cooperation of webmasters in this arena.

Please help our fellow disabled Internet users. Amber and family you know who I am talking about.

[ashear]

Actually to add on to this post, I understand that a few Google engineers are actually visually impaired. Imagine their personal views on this subject and what you can do to help!

[tedster]

if the flash content does not relate to the default image shown in place of flash content ... it may be considered as cloaking?

You bet -- I was also assuming some text content, not just images.

[hutcheson]

>Interesting so are you saying if the flash content does not relate to the default image shown in place of flash content if flash and javascript not installed it may be considered as cloaking?

If that's not cloaking, then what on earth would be? And that's all a white-hat needs to know.

A black-hat would wonder what kinds of cloaking Google can automatically detect. And what HE needs to know is, Google is always getting better at automatic detection. If Google isn't parsing SWF files yet today, they may be by next Thursday.

[tedster]

The reason I included that warning is that when people first understand this kind of techology, they often get very tempted to "embellish" their alternate content -- I've seen the temptation in almost every case, and it has lead to penalties for some of the sites that did it in spite of my caution.

In those penalized cases, I feel the practice was reported to Google by an unhappy SERPs competitor, then detected and penalized by hand.

[dupac]

Thanks for your advice, is this method also good for other search engines (Y, M and Ask)?

[tedster]

Yes - with this method any spider is served your html content directly. There is nothing google-specific going on.