Google Webmaster Tools, Flash and false 'crawl errors'

[smithaa02]

Our company uses a typical javascript function to display swf files to get around IE clicking.

eg

<script type="text/javascript">

AC_FL_RunContent( 'codebase','http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,28,0',
'wmode','transparent','width','535','height','80','src','http://www.mysite.com/flash/new_banner/BannerRotator',
'quality','high','pluginspage','http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash','flashvars','xmlpath=home.xml&update=2','movie',
'http://www.mysite.com/flash/new_banner/BannerRotator' ); //end AC code
</script>

But google keeps thinking (at least webmaster tools does in the crawl errors) that these are broken links. Believe the problem is they are referring to the swf file without the .swf extension, (eg BannerRotator when it should be BannerRotator.swf) but unfortunately my hands are tied as this is the way most of the flash javascripts work (without the extension).

Is there an easy fix for this?

Is this something that even has to be worried about? Specifically with SEO in mind...google doesn't like broken links right? So am I being punished (even slightly) for having these 'broken' flash files?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:50 pm (utc) on May 13, 2011]
[edit reason] fixed side-scrolling [/edit]

[tedster]

It can't help - and Apple products like the ipad and iphone won't work with Flash either.

Look into solutions such as swfobject and swfaddress to serve alternative content to any user-agents that aren't Flash-enabled. Maybe you can use Adobe's new Wallaby tool [labs.adobe.com] to convert your native FLA files to HTML5.

How you deploy alternative content is important. The logic is upside down to what many people expect. By default, you serve the non-Flash content. Then you test the user agent for Flash compatibility and only if you get a positive does your server send the Flash.

[edited by: tedster at 6:55 pm (utc) on May 16, 2011]

[smithaa02]

Thx for the heads up. I'll use swfobject as it appears there should be no way google can mess that up.