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I personally love a clean html-only site, so fit perfectly in Google's mould.. however I often create sites for clients who want something 'flashier'.. it takes a lot of convincing to talk them around to pulling it back to basic and maybe using only a few flash elements rather than the whole navigation system. I have seen some absolutely fantastic flash websites out there (using simple interfaces), which I seriously regret not seeing in Google results.. in fact, when I show people such sites they are surprised that it was even possible on the internet!
Another area is framesets: this surely is a tool for webmasters to cut down on bandwidth, loading times and increase speed and usability for the end user.. and yet it is futile creating something with framesets if no-one can find it on the internet!
I do see that Google is in front of many other SEs in pioneering new technologies (dynamic urls etc..), but I sometimes feel sad for those people who are trying to create more beautiful, userfriendly internet and just aren't being recognized in the search results.
Interested to see what people think..
With the advent of the Flash Remoting and Flash Communications Server technologies, the future of the web lies in Flash development. Not for animation, but for a more efficient user-friendly Internet experience.
Personally, I hate leafing thru pages and pages of html to read content. Flash is much a more compact UI, which can take large amounts of text if done correctly.
And it has been said that FAST/AllTheWeb has the technology in place to be able to read content from within the Flash player.
The Flash player is also ubiquitous.. so worrying about browser compatibilty will be a thing of the past.
Well said.
The Flash player is also ubiquitous.. so worrying about browser compatibilty will be a thing of the past.
Really? After my 70 year old mom finally relented to all those popups asking her to install flash, she asked me how to remove it. She wants nothing to do with something that is mostly (yes, mostly) used for fancy, annoying ads.
She then went and told her friends that removing flash would get rid of a lot of those annoying sites, and to just say no when it asks to install it. Is this the future of browsers? It it an improvement in the UI if senior citizens, as well as tech savvy people dislike it?
Flash puts too much control of a website into the hads of the developer, instead of being in the control of the surfer where it belongs.
I only have flash enabled in the copy of IE that I keep around for getting to sites that I can't get to with Moz, Opera or Konq running through privoxy, and without flash. Sometimes I even surf with NS 3.02 and judge websites value by how well things work when I am doing that.
If you look at every new operating system in use today you will find that the Flash player is already there. No need to download anything except for updates. (Flash 6)
Flash 5 has a 99% penetration and Flash 6 is already at a 40% penetration.
In fact, there are rumors that Microsoft is coveting the Flash player for themselves. Here is an article you might want to check out. [theregister.co.uk...]
Flash puts too much control of a website into the hads of the developer, instead of being in the control of the surfer where it belongs.
Well put. Unfortunately, that seems to be the trend with many Web designers and developers these days, as anyone who's visited a site with fixed font sizes will attest.
Somebody made the comment that the onus should be on Macromedia to make it possible to index Flash content. Actually, if Macromedia is serious about making Flash a standard for content that has a need to be indexed, it should make Flash indexable and create a search engine for Flash content as a way to promote Flash. (Google obviously has no compelling need or desire to be Macromedia's servant.)
If used with care, and by offering both a Flash and a normal HTML version of a site, Flash CAN be a nice thing.
Go back to message #4 of this thread and you'll see that I'm in agreement with bluemi on this and so are many others who are into the usability issues.
You cannot unleash an all Flash site on the general public and expect to reach all of your audience, it just won't happen.
If you don't provide an html alternative, you miss out on two things; usability and spiderability.
I have a few sites in my favorites that I visit occasionally and they are Flash. One of them fails to offer an html alternative and I hate waiting for the intro to finish before being automatically redirected to their main page. I'm on a cable modem so there is still delay in downloading Flash, even if it is minimal.
When you force a visitor to wait for an intro to end, you've made a serious mistake. I say this because returning visitors and those on 56k or less are going to get somewhat frustrated in having to deal with the intro each time they visit.
If you are going to build Flash sites, then do them correctly.
Maybe because the programmers at Google have tried alltheweb.com's Flash search facility (just go to the advanced search and limit searches to .swf files).
Imagine a search engine for splash screens.
If a Flash interface with a server-side language such as PHP or Coldfusion is used for the shopping cart for example, clients can view and purchase items all within one page of the site.
Optimize the rest of the site with the usual SEO techniques.
By the way, if you cloak HTML underneath a Flash-based site, I am told that Google will consider it to be an illegal practice and they won't index it (unless you pay them; then they tend to overlook it).
By the way, Welcome to WebmasterWorld!
I think, one greate problem of Flash is monopoly on this standart
Swish is an alternative way to create swfs and I believe there are several others... I guess none have quite made it as easy as Flash though..
If you don't provide an html alternative, you miss out on two things; usability and spiderability
Firstly, I think you miss out on usability if you don't think about your application, this is equally as true for HTML as it is for Flash.. there are plenty of horrible HTML sites out there that just have all their information crammed on to one page.. (strangely they are rewarded for that in the SERPS) You can't blame the technology for such user-unfriendly creations, just the creator of the site who didn't bother thinking about making it more userfriendly. I think just as that was a symptom of early websites in particular, so Flash also has such symptoms.. over-use of animation where it's not needed etc.. I think Flash has been developing very quickly and IF used well can provide a far more friendly and efficient web experience..
As far as the spiderability comment goes.. that is exactly my point.. isn't this stopping Flash from developing?
I just read a statistic that 80% of all Internet users are still on dial up. This should concern anyone using things like flash, etc. that take forever to load.
This should also be a concern to people loading up images that are 1 mb large.. I find myself waiting for HTML sites all the time, thanks to poor programming. Again, these are symptoms of inexperienced webmasters, not a flawed technology! Using Flash correctly, there is no reason for large file sizes.. it is only when people start to try and push every button at their disposal that the filesizes become large. By re-using objects etc within your template you can seriously reduce sizes and provide a nice 'loader' for the beginning as well.. something that is not so easy with HTML..
For ADVERTISING, maybe.
For INFORMATION, absolutely not..... Google is right, standards are good, quick-loading pages are required, and twirling/fading/sliding/shrinking logos are just STUPID
Again.. these are symptoms of people trying out something new. Flash provides great content management systems that allow a publisher to display their information in a convenient and well-designed fashion, if they know what they're doing. I agree.. twirling, fading, sliding, shrinking logos are a waste of time.
Most people don't care for flashier stuff other than as entertainment
Isn't one of / the most popular keywords used in Google 'sex'? Do you think those people are looking for information on the matter or just simple 'entertainment'? People are looking for entertainment, so why shouldn't a technology that makes the web more entertaining be indexed properly and consequently help the search results?
Why eliminate all those Flash based sites from being indexed? What is holding them back. If FAST technology allows it, then why can't Google do it?
Is FAST indexing the Flash content itself? Or associated HTML content?
By the way, if you cloak HTML underneath a Flash-based site, I am told that Google will consider it to be an illegal practice and they won't index it...
Of course they won't, because the HTML then becomes the equivalent of a meta tag: i.e., a description that can be manipulated to fool the search engine into thinking the Flash content is about something else.
Fast Indexes Flash [fast.no]
I looked at that press release, but it doesn't answer the question of what's actually being indexed. For example:
"...for relevant information contained with Macromedia Flash content..."
Was that a typo for "within," or did they really mean "contained with" (as in accompanying HTML)?
I tried searching for Flash content this evening in Alltheweb.com, limiting my search to .swf files while searching on a variety of fairly common terms, and I came up with hardly any results--and what I did find seemed to be descriptions from HTML files. Has anyone else here had better luck in finding indexed text from WITHIN Flash .swf files?
As to FAST, it is my understanding they are indexing content, i.e., they can "read" Flash content. These would be for Flash sites that don't layer HTML underneath or don't have alternate HTML content. Macromedia hints they are working on a solution for the search engine problem, by which I assume they mean Google.
As to layering HTML underneath Flash, I am referring to the practice available under HTML 4.0 enabled browsers of Z Order cloaking of replicated HTML textual content under a Flash page -- invisible to the viewer and visible to spiders. I was told this by Robin Nobles who had originally suggested this technique, and who apparently got busted by Google for this practice. I use it on several Flash sites, one of which uses a paid ad with Google, with no repercussions -- so far.
[Imagine a search engine for splash screens.(jomaxx)]
Well, when you do any search, you are looking for content. I assume that if the SE found content in a splash page, then it should rightfully show up in a search. Usually splash pages (why people use them, I don't know) have little content, and presumably wouldn't come up for a given search. On the other hand, how many splash pages are there compared to bad, content-free, HTML pages? Don't know, but you see my point.
Thanks for the welcome to the forum.
Bulldust.
Youve been reading too much of their own publicity.
It will find a place, but at the moment its mainly proprietary, costs a lot to develop in sofware costs and person time and the knowledge needed to use it, and anyone who has been designing on the web for more than 3 years will know that technologies grow and disappear fast.
I love the new flash capabilities and the way it has improved. But to say it is the future of the Web is naive in the extreme. Other technologies will develop. We dont know what tomorrow will bring in this still nascent medium.
Ive seen the future of the Web
and it's text.
You dont need any special programs to work with it, nobody owns it, its free to use. It's the ultimate "open source"
All the rest supplements it.. sometimes well, sometimes badly. depending on your audience and the content and aims of your site.
Ive seen the future of the Web and it's text.
What do you mean by this? Surely the future is not just pages of text? We may as well go back a decade in time.. I don't contest that textual information will always be a big part of the internet, I merely am asking whether Google is inhibiting different ways of seeing it, whether it be displayed as PDF, HTML, Coldfusion, PHP or any other 'container' available. By not indexing one technology, this surely disadvantages it from growing and stops it being found by users on the internet.. I don't know the last time I've found a flash website through Google.. The only way to find good Flash websites seems to be through links from other sites, usually design sites.
As stated before, I personally have a preference for clean, easy to read, well presented sites.. simple layouts.. clear text.. It's just there's no motivation for anyone to create clean, information based SWF sites because they will not be recognized by the search engines!
Perhaps Flash isn't the future of the web, I'm willing to concede that. Perhaps something else will develop that offers rich media and more control for designers, while still allowing easily indexable content. But I certainly don't think it's going to be plain text.. perhaps I AM naive.. perhaps we WILL just be stuck surfing through pages and pages of mind-numbingly boring text websites.. what joy!
I don't contest that textual information will always be a big part of the internet, I merely am asking whether Google is inhibiting different ways of seeing it, whether it be displayed as PDF, HTML, Coldfusion, PHP or any other 'container' available.
One could just as easily ask if Macromedia is inhibiting the user's ability to find and access text by encouraging Web developers to use a proprietary data format.
In any case, I'm sure Google will eventually crawl Flash content if there's a perceived need (i.e., user demand) and if the text can be indexed.
That's like saying "if god meant us to fly he would have given us wings"
I think the future of the web is interactivity and Flash acts as a great vehicle for this.
filetype:flash searches Flash/Shockwave files
filetype:msword searches Microsoft Word documents
filetype:pdf searches Acrobat Reader documents
You can refine the search by using (filetype:flash internet marketing) for example, and many sites will be listed.
Google uses this too.
However, Google uses typical Windows file extensions...for example, if you want to search for Microsoft Word
documents, use "filetype:doc" on Google.
I think the day will come when Google will have to implement this search criteria across the board.
After all, when did they come into power 1999?
That's not that long ago
Google has more than satisfied our needs.
I would never drop them, unless a more usable, more efficient search engine came up.
And usability may sound like jargon, but it's not.
It's the reality of I am looking for a "Router Table" for example. And I don't want tons of graphics and flashy animation. I want product information, maybe with some pictures to make sure we are talking about the same product.
But it's the truth.
We want useful information, and not stuff that takes time load or calculate.
I think the future of the web is interactivity and Flash acts as a great vehicle for this.
"Interactivity" is in the eye of the beholder. See:
[nathan.com...]
Also, one could argue that hypertext (the basic building block of the Web) is more interactive than the majority of Flash content.
As to whether Flash represents "the future of the Web," that reminds me of the hype for Adobe Acrobat back when PDF was being promoted as a universal data format. PDF has achieved success for certain types of publishing, but it's still a niche product.
(IMHO, Flash is a lot like interactive CD-ROMs in the mid-1990s: useful for some things, but inefficient for conveying most types of information.)
>>>That's like saying "if god meant us to fly he would have given us wings"
No it isnt. Airplanes didnt reduce walking. In fact i do a heap of walking at airports. And in 100 years will we still be walking - funny scooter things regardless.
And who says Flash makes us fly? It is simply a humble technology that has good potential in some applications. What WILL make the internet fly is technologies involved in delivering light text to PDA's and a host of mobile devices.
You dont move forward just for the sake of it. I will use flash in the cases when it does better for the user what technologies i use now, and is as light, cheap, and easy. Many flash apps still crash my laptop, and almost all still slow down by browsing.
Europe brought up a great example of PDF's. Also look at java, another technology that is still used, but was once spun as the tech that was the future of the web.
Lets not fly before we can run. Flash will be indexed (though i cant see how it can be technologically just now) and will become more popular, when people see a need for it and it comes up with a killer application or two.
Text will remain the meat of the web, as it is with newspapers. The web was designed to be more like newspapers and print media than TV and cinema. Hyperlinking is it's soul.
I agree with you. That is the exact reason I talk about Flash as more than a humble technology.
Are you aware that quite a few new PDA and other mobile devices you speak of come with the Flash player already installed?
Using XML and web services within the a Flash program make this all an efficient medium to become a real player in the future of the Internet.
As far as text goes, if you know how, large amounts of text can be delivered by Flash without a problem.
I think it's java designed to look like Flash. But look at that source...
"Only six electronic digital computers would be required to satisfy the computing needs of the entire United States" - Howard Aiken in 1947 (creator of Mark 1)-
Just because something is created for one purpose, doesn't mean it will always be that way..
When the first personal computers were created, the large computer manufacturers at the time called it a 'fad'...
When sound was being introduced to film, there was a lot of debate suggesting that it was better off without it!
Sure, the internet was created to exchange data (for the military initially), but it has developed into much more than that in the last 3 decades..!
Computers were created for 'computing', but since have developed word-processing and entertainment capabilities .. aren't modern computers designed for entertainment, not information? Why else the upgrades to faster computers.. they're hardly necessary for simple word-processing tasks.
Lets not fly before we can run
No, let's not.. but sooner or later.. the internet will find it's place in the sky!
Can't see how that looks like flash though..
