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This page just sees if you have flash enabled and whips you straight onto the home page, yes?
could I not make the flash detection page full of content / keywords etc and get this page ranked highly in the engines when people click on it they go straight through to the flash.
Before you all scream spammer at me, I'm out of other ideas sorry and I don't want to use any form of clocking!
Before you suggest having an html site and letting the user choose that was my first suggestion which was a deffinate no, from the client!
Could the idea of optimising the flash detection page with plenty of good content, title tags etc + point all backward links to this page work? Seems a bit to easy, the only down side I can see is that they will only be able to optimise one page for keywords not the whole site! (O and it could be seen as spam by competitiors?)
If thats a no go then at least get a HTML page which tells them all the great things the site offers with the option to download it.
A few pages of decent HTML content that leads to the Flash?
JOAT
Could somone please tell me if my flash detection optimisation idea has any merit at all?
I have acheived high position with a similar technique on another site (see profile) but the difference was the option to enter the site rather than an instant redirect for those with flash.
Definately not an ideal solution but it would give the bots a little something to look at.
Could the idea of optimising the flash detection page with plenty of good content, title tags etc
I have my doubts about the efficacy of having one little page, flashing it's leg so to speak, trying to hitchike on the information highway. However, it seems to me that having lots of content and lots of pages is the way to go.
It also seems that you're getting cornered into saying what the boss wants you to say. Don't. They're paying for what you know. Be up front and tell them. As edit_g so wisely pointed out, ask them to show you a successful flash ecommerce site. This is the kind of smarts you're paid for.
When it comes to seo, and I'm just starting out, I have found that educating the client is a big part of what I do. But they respect you for it when you can back up your words with documentation and examples from the web, such as showing them PR Zero sites that practice the bad seo the client is insisting on. Or the Google TOS that forbids automated querying. That sort of thing.
[edited by: martinibuster at 5:15 pm (utc) on Nov. 5, 2002]
Did a hidden div and warned the client repeatedly that if their competitors choose to report them they could be hot water....
Needless to say they rank well now, but it really is a bit of a crap situation. I'm always rather unhappy about this sort of thing but can't afford to turn down the work ;)
Nick
DaveN
Going to have another chat with the client on friday!
Nick
How much clearer can the importance of html versus flash be?
This could be a strong argument in favor of having a non-flash alternative for the site.
Either way, good luck on Friday!
A client, before he met me, paid 30k for a 100% flash site. They already had a (horrible [shivers just thinking about it]) html version. I just can't describe how bad this site was on every level, from bad coding to mis-matched font, to horrible color choices. They Liked it! I could clean the coding and font as long as visually it was basically the same - big whoop. Anyways.. they wanted a 'splash' page (something else that gives me the shivers not in a good way) to give people the choice of HTML or Flash.. at least they understood that.. and it was to contain - get this - a .jpg of the flash interface with slight modifications (such as 'choose flash or html'). There's only so far alt text will go :/ So I slapped some text 'below the fold' that was visable. That's about all I could do.. where they could only be found by direct url searching before, they grabbed 1-5 on quite a few targeted terms after. Fortunately it's a pretty niche market and not alot of competition - and what is there doesn't seem to know the benefits of SEO yet ;P
If you've got flash you never see this page and leap straight to the falsh if you haven't you see the text page which should still be usefull ( I hope they get more business from this page than their thousands of dollars flash site!)
I was just concerned that the robots would not read the page and I would be wasting my time but as robots don't have flash installed they should read this page!
Is this considfered a trick?
Surely you decide what size a layer should show at?
Craig
DaveN
Simple. Tell the client that when Google sees a flash home page, they take that as evidence the site is junk and rank it very low. Then explain if they insist on using flash, while they will be near impossible to find using Google, they could try a massive television advertising campaign to compensate. Then point out how you can save them a fortune by just ditching the flash page. ;)
One problem I'm having is contolling how the hyperlinks work throught the flash, how do you controll if they are active through the flash or not?
I have a transparent section I would like the link to work on that page but not the rest of it!
Simple. Tell the client that when Google sees a flash home page, they take that as evidence the site is junk and rank it very low.
Although I tend to believe that 100% flash "may" have certain informative value when used as informative, the above statement is fairly accurate if you are attempting to sell something.
Flash can be a very effective motivator, but 100% Flash means your motivator is sell "Flash Technology" and "Flash Designing". If this is the case I would suggest:
CSS2 would allow you to layer text underneath the flash -- I suppose that this could be similar to "alt" for an image... is it spam? Not as long as it represents the flash content.
If your client is selling anything else -- they really need to take a hard long look at exactly what is their primary business (products/services) "unique selling points" (USP) are.
If this doesn't include "Flash Design" they are motivating the wrong markets and SEO practices of any kind isn't going to help.
