Flash Site - Current Thoughts & Techniques

[HuskyPup]

I have never built a flash site, wouldn't know where to start without doing some research, and at the moment have no intention of doing so however I met with one of my business partners from India yesterday and he revealed to me a new site that one of our younger guys had constructed, needless to say it was in flash and very impressive too.

When I explained to my partner the problems with spidering flash sites he was very taken aback since he clearly knew nothing about SEO etc and he's 30 years my junior and has obviously grown up with computers and the Net. I know one thing now, if everything stays roughly as they are for the next few years I'd better start teaching someone in the company SEO rapidly:-)

I would actually like to use this flash site since I can give it enough natural links etc for it be used. I'd better explain now that this domain although 12-13 years old is NOT one of our primary portal or business sites however it would make us a great brochure site, therefore before I start researching what I can and cannot do with optimising a flash site, what are the current thoughts and techniques for optimal SEO if any?

I have found some Net articles from about 3 years ago and one interesting comment on WebmasterWorld:

Just dump a load of HTML below the fold on numerous pages.....no one will ever look because they will be so impressed by the flash graphics.

Hmmm...ok, all you young creative people out there, tell me, please:-)

Thanks
HP

[tedster]

Well, I'm not so young, but do I have a comment. There are some technologies that allow you to serve HTML content to the spiders and Flash to the flash-enabled browsers that Google encourages. One is called swfobject {see http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/ [code.google.com]) and a related evolution of that idea called swfaddress.

The key idea turns the usual logic of "alternate content" on its head, at least logically. The site serves the HTML equivalent of the Flash content by default, uses javascript to test the user-agent for Flash capability, and then uses the DOM to overwrite the div for those browsers.

Works a treat - as long as the HTML and the Flash are roughly equivalent. If you stuff the HTML with content that's not in the Flash movie, that is a kind of cloaking and it can get you penalized.

[HuskyPup]

Thanks tedster, I've passed that info on to the young 'un to digest and implement.

[dstiles]

There is an increasing number of net-savvy people who will not view Flash. Apart from many Flash sites being very annoying (constantly moving images etc) there is still a serious security problem with Flash and people who know about it shy away.

Two days ago, from zdnet security blog: "Adobe Shockwave haunted by critical security holes".