Forum Moderators: open
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..
Here's my question, open for discussion: Is Google's (and other SEs) inability to spider frames, flash and other 'modern' web technologies properly stopping developers from progressing the internet?
For those of us who like to actually use the web on a daily basis, we certainly hope so. The amount of flash, dhtml, and js junk on the web is growing - thank goodness for the search engines that are keep that stuff at bay.
If it were not for the se's, the "extinquish" phase of the ms master 3E (all your content is ours) plan would be in full swing.
I enjoyed your analogy to the growth principal... It's not about now but where we are going.
And regarding that site, pretty nuts huh? Keyword and <h1> stuffing at it's best! Makes me wonder what other folks on this forum have run across.
BTW, I did not report that site to Google. Counting on them finding the bad neighbors by themselves, don't they find sites like this with keyword density or something?
Brett, I do think likewise, that one great effect of the SE's is that they do filter a whole lotta junk.
The amount of flash, dhtml, and js junk on the web is growing - thank goodness for the search engines that are keep that stuff at bay
The amount of flash, dhtml, js good stuff on the web is also growing -- don't they deserve a fair chance?
The amount of html 'junk' on the web is also growing..
In fact, the amount of 'junk' (full stop) on the web is growing..
I thought that's what algorithms are for.. to filter it out based on content, not the program it was created in.
If that were the case, they should create a filter to filter out all sites created in Frontpage too.. I think more junk comes from there than from flash!
I don't see how simply not indexing a web file as widespread as swf is 'helping keep the junk out'...
If you DO want your "cutting edge techniques" website to be found on search engines, I dont think its too much to ask, knowing that search engines like text and standard hyperlinks the most, to design sites with that in mind. All you need is text in the index page, incoming external links from clean standard pages and the like. Then you can link to your flash, dhtml etc from your index page whatever. ..If you dont need to be found by search engines, you can create the most high tech site you want, and then use PPC, PPI, word of mouth and a heap of other promotion options. The world is increasigly changing to paying for online exposure anyway, the days of comprehensive free exposure are steadily marching into the past, and i predict in a few years this question will be irrelevant. It costs the same for a click on OV, Adwords, Y! express submits, and heaps of others, regardless whether its a frames site, swf, pdf, doc, HTML page or even plain .txt.
AV and Google already index images for example. But how do they do it? Mainly by file names and text surrounding them. OK maybe with images and flash there can be a way to index say a "keyword" field or "description" field in the swf or jpg itself for example, but just think what a repository for spam that would be!
Search engines should not be expected to provide direct links to every document and file floating around the web, even though they do use as a marketing spin that they try.. eg pdfs, docs, etc. But they can link to fast loading pages and resources that in return link to those resources and can provide more info on what you are downloading before you do.
This concern that search engines are stifling "innovation" or "new technologies" usually comes from those who design web sites first, and then think about other aspects of the business mix afterwards - like marketing for example. It is the bane of technologically driven vs market/consumer driven business models that has characterised business development for many many years before the Web was even thought of.
Real innovation and (as europeforvisitors pointed out so well) real interactivity, mostly use creative ideas than new technology or software/computer facilities themseleves. Europes links clearly stated that one of the most interactive methods you can use are forums and discussion groups. All which can run on such ancient technology as plain ol' perl. - And history tells us that innovators and first movers in 99.9% of cases die in poverty. The rish guys are the ones that can apply those ideas to the realities of the market, and in our field, one of the realities are text driven algos in search engines.
In any industry, the road travelled is littered by misguided entrepreneurs who concentrated too much on technology - and too little on the consumer. The web is absolutely no different. Temper new technology with the reality of the marketplace. That is the way you will make your fortune and on the side move the web forward in reality rather than dreaming about it.
(PS. since when was "frames" a "modern technology" :)) I think they were more or less killed by "includes" which were an even more modern technology, and are a way to get the value of frames without the indexing problems yes?
since when was "frames" a "modern technology"
I did not mean to suggest that frames were a modern technology.. just my sentence can be read that way.. sorry bout that.. I meant: frames, flash and other technoligies (modern one).. hmm.. that doesn't really make it any clearer does it :)
Search engines should not be expected to provide direct links to every document and file floating around the web
This is a good point.. I agree with you on that one.. after all there are a lot of totally unindexable files out there.
Only, our example of flash (which this topic has turned into a discussion about), is a bit more than a 'file floating around on the web'.. 99% of people are geared up to using flash and it is used on a great deal of sites.
I've checked Fast's position on flash and they say they do index "the full text" of flash documents - {ref [alltheweb.com]}.
Google currently says they index the links in flash documents.. unfortunately that will generally only benefit plain text sites that are linked to by flash sites.. fair?
Perhaps it is not Google's responsibility to index all files out there.. I'm just wondering whether by doing that they slow down the take-up of technologies like flash and stop others developing?
Googlebot could be seen as stifling development by indirectly in that designers and programmers, output does not get seen by a wide audience.
This is can be counteracted by the fact that if you are good you don’t need to shout :)
For all non-believers in flash please check out:
[nike.com...]
The nav is fantastic, and there is more interactivity than you can shake a stick at.
Yep its not search engine friendly, refuge at a price ;)
I feel like my skills are so weak when I look at sites like this.
For all non-believers in flash please check out:
And, your point is? It's not that we are non-believers, we just happen to believe that there are many who would be totally lost in the navigation on that site. ;)
I viewed that in IE6, Win98, on a cable modem. A little on the jerky side. It spawned a new window. Very busy, but probably appropriate for a portion of their audience.
No html alternative but I'll assume that they are sniffing for that and serving up static html. Being that they are who they are, surely they could afford a well optimized spider friendly html version.
Hey chiyo, great post!
P.S. Just checked Google, they are #1 for their targeted term. One word and two word combinations. Of course we all know why that is. ;)
1. First of all it opens a new window without my permission and expands taking over all my desktop. Suddenly nike has obtrusively taken over my life, I cant see my IM, even my bottom bar has disappeared. The rest of the world has been put on hold. Only escape is Alt/Tab, and three clicks to get past their 2 pages. I should have have clicked Shift F4 in retrospect. (3 secs)
2. I stare at a black screen for 26 secs.
3. A logo comes up saying nike labs and "loading xml" or something like that (6 secs)
4. Lots of running shoes in a row come up on the screeen. (25 secs)
5. I still dont know what the website is about after 57 secs
6. I continue to stare at the screen looking at that xml loading pic and the shoes for another 25 secs
7. I close both windows and come back to sanity and good ol perl driven WebmasterWorld! I still dont know what message that site was trying to give me - but what I do know is -
a) Nike's brand is arrogance
b) they have no respect for dial up users
c) they wasted 2 minutes of my life that could be spent reading WebmasterWorld
d) I dont know about their design skills. I never saw the site
e) Maybe they are targeting a different type of person than me (someone in the us with a high speed connection, lots of spare time, and have patience with loading speeds in the hope they see something flashy!) But if, so why didnt they warn me! Why not a health warning for info seekers and dial up users on their entry page like cig packets?
f) They have FAR too much money for their own good
g) If that is what they do with the profits they make from workers at sweatshops in poor countries, Im never going to buy their shoes ever (even if i could afford them)
If Google referred me to that site, Ild bloody well sue them.
And should google have another warning on the listing - (Load time estimate 3 mins on dial up - viewing this site causes high blood pressure) I didnt check but i guess the google listing for the page size of this site may have been something like 5 kbs.
And if thats the "future of the web" I'm going back to my local library and the idiot box right now.
unknown soldier, Are you a plant for the WebmasterWorld anti-flash brigade?
that said, the most annoying part about it being that it takes over the whole screen was not a flash function.. more like an HTML function.. so go figure!
The loading time was just plain inconsiderate ..
[quote[And if thats the "future of the web" I'm going back to my local library and the idiot box right now. [/quote]
I guess the future of the web is not really dial-up either though is it (?), .... unless you believe we'll still all be using dialup in 20 years time :)
a flash example more to my liking and more suited to dial-up: miniml [miniml.com]
.. and yet how many words of that are listed in google?
p.s. other than the full-screen thing in the nikelabs site and the loading time (which I didn't have a problem with on broadband), I did like the rest of the site. nicely designed, just a little inconsiderate..
A flash example more to my liking and more suited to dial-up:
Since I'm not on a dialup I cannot vouch for the speed issue.
Too minimalist for me. You have to realize that many Internet users are not aware that they can control the Flash elements using their cursor. Not immediately anyway, especially in the example provided.
Nice concept using a minimalist approach. Not real user friendly, especially the jumping navigation. I'd prefer things that are not moving about while I navigate a site.
Again, we are dealing with audience here. Flash applies to certain audiences. Its not something you would use on a site that needs to appeal to the broad spectrum of users that most sites do.
Where the heck is the html version at? ;)
Unless you believe we'll still all be using dialup in 20 years time.
I don't think many of us want to wait 20 years before generating a profit from our sites.
P.S. Fonts are borderline readable on 1024x768. When I use the zoom feature in my Flash player, the site loses all of its navigation, and then some, so that doesn't work.
pageone: my point was that a lot of people in this thread seemed to be v.negative towards flash. The level of interactivity in this site wipes the floor with HTML.
Slow for cable users yes, but are we not now living in the broadband dynasty?
I do agree they could agree add an HTML version for user and search engine friendliness though.
NIKE if your reading this I will gladly offer my services to complete this task for you at a competitive rate ;) sticky mail me!
Chiyo: Its not the end of the world:
Browsers taking over the task bar - good or bad you decide you can always close it. Sometimes it can work really work well. Pure aesthetics.
The Nikelab is a heavy site that is slow to load - the price of vanity?
a) they have no respect for dial up users
- agree - but if you looked at their target audience and their connections....
b) they wasted 2 minutes of my life that could be spent reading WebmasterWorld
- agree - :)
c) I dont know about their design skills. I never saw the site
The designer is a hot potato - if you have the patience try.
- you might feel this site a little more - probably a slug over dialup though. Think design, aesthetics, interactivity and latency.
d) Maybe they are targeting a different type of person than me (someone in the us with a high speed connection, lots of spare time, and have patencie with loading speeds in the hope they see something flashy!) But if, so why didnt they warn me! Why not a health warning for info seekers and dial up users on their entry page like cig packets?
- agree - :)
e) They have FAR too much money for their own good
f) If that is what they do with the profits they make from workers at sweatshops in poor countries, Im never going to buy their shoes ever (even if i could afford them)
I wrote dissertation on the exploitation of labour at college - Nike are amongst the worst perpetrators out there but if you take the work away from the people in these poor countries what are they going to do now?
My friend is a shoe designer who makes regular trips to factories in China / South East Asia and her reports indicates that improvements have been made in working conditions in the factories that she has visited.
And if thats the "future of the web" I'm going back to my local library and the idiot box right now.
c'mon man open mind not closed mind!
And am I a plant for the anti flash brigade? heh, leave you guessing on that one...
Just do it!
US
[edited by: Marcia at 5:46 am (utc) on Jan. 8, 2003]
Flash applies to certain audiences.
Do you suggest google users are not capable of navigating a flash site?
I believe there's room for different kinds of sites: those that target the lowest common denominator and those that treat their audience like intelligent human beings..
In the case provided, the audience is generally someone fairly web-proficient, who should be able to figure out a navigation structure quickly and appreciate the design opportunities that structure provides...
I don't see how people can be so opposed to sites trying out new things.. <scratching head>
I don't know why the text was too small for you on a 1024x768. I'm on the same and no problems here.. I mean, they are pixel-fonts after all! And as far as the zooming in goes.. when's the last time you did that on HTML? ( I don't mean text-zoom.. )
The site is very close to what MSN was doing five or six (seven?) years ago. I'd hardly call it a foretaste of the future--it's more like deja vu.
Not even close.
Maybe in the next dynasty.
The broadband dynasty was a massive spin from the companies who would profit from it- and those who mistakenly saw the web as an extension of the idiot box.
Broadband penetration is not even close to even modest predictions. Even in the US, as one of most advanced economies, it is far from mainstream. Video streaming was spun as the killer application, but people seem to be saying they dont really need it. Now a mass of applications that assumed we will be in a broadband dynasty now are withering on the narrow band.
That site would miss out on hits, and more importantly maybe cause bad PR, from advanced economy city users with dial up, country users, executives dialing up from laptops in hotel rooms, people with "light" browsers, people whose high speed connections are congested or just not optimized well, many people from developing nations, and those on low speed "Radio wave" connections.
Agreed with a previous poster, you can't wait a few years for more to get high speed, when you need profits now!
And since when did a mainstream international product like running shoes for goodness sake have an internet user demographic of high speed users? i would guess that a product like that needs to reach a broad a prospect base than possible.
I accept however, that the site may simply be a suck it and see, experimental site, maybe for real launch in a few years.
But getting back to the topic of this site, its sites like this that make me very thankful to search engines if they can reduce the likelihood of me being spiralled into miss-communication hell.
I'm confused by this statement. Do you have to be a broadband user, or not be one who likes to read straightforward info without lots of fluff to be an intelligent human being? Please accept my apoligies if i misread, or misassumed your point.
From what i read the Nike site referenced seemed to "dumb down" the process of selecting shoes if anything, rather than being targeted for intelligent human beings who can handle more than one bit of info at a time and decide how to buy a sandshoe without being held by the hand.
Im wondering which of your two categories our sites, which are 95% text only, and designed for senior executives, fall in?
And surely if you have a lowest common denominator product like running shoes tv's diet pills or gifts, you would still want to treat your customers like intelligent human beings surely?
dont worry daamsie, you can stop scratching your head!
I dont think anybody here is opposed to trying out new things.
It's just they generally dont want to be exposed to it especally if they have limited time and were just really looking for info, not new ways to present it...
Part of the pleasure of web surfing is that you are in control, you go at your own pace and you select what you want to see. Some sites don't seem to appreciate that the user wants to be in control and they simply blast you with their commercial content.
Not all flash is bad, I have seen many examples where it is used in combination with HTML, PHP, PERL etc. to provide the user with speed advantages and not subject them to an unwelcome level of "now you are on our site we are going to take over your PC and give you our multimedia sales spiel".
There is nothing stopping someone producing a partial flash and framed (if they want) site that performs just as well as any other in search engines. Google likes frames and it doesn't penalise flash, just as long as it isn't all Flash.
As connection speeds improve (I doubt we will see a dial up connections in 2010 in the US) and technology changes, SE's will have to move with the times. I expect a few flash crawlers will start to appear in the next couple of years. I'm also sure Flash is just the start of the multimedia age on the Web.
Whether you personally like or hate Flash and Frames, one thing is for sure, the market will go with what the target audience wants to see. I personally hate almost all modern pop music (acid, rap, techno type stuff) (I'm getting old :( ), but just because I hate it doesn't mean it hasn't got a place in the market, and if I want to make money in that market I have to bite my tongue and go with the flow.
Flash use will expand (I hope it is used more tastefully than the average example today). SE's will crawl it, and then it will be replaced by something better.
I still talk about the days I programmed a DEC 11 in machine code using punched cards as the primary input device, nothing was ever going to be better than that;) But 20+ years on, it does seem a little prehistoric.
20 years from now we will probably be querying SE's in a similar fashion to the way they do on StarTrek (voice and natural language), and people will be remembering the good old days of how they used to type a search string into Google:)
"Just use the keyboard - How quaint!"
I mean this in reference to a comment made about the navigation of the site I mentioned.. there was a comment made that the navigation was hard to understand and couldn't instantly be figured out. In my opinion, that navigation challenged the way webmasters can think about navigation and provides an interesting alternative.. considering the site was primarily targeted at webmasters, I don't see how that can be a bad thing..
I would agree that you wouldn't want to use a navigation like that if all you're interested in is people being able to find something easily (like a shop etc..) - just because people get used to conventions and there are people out there who can't imagine anything but what they've already seen before.. (this is what I mean by lowest common denominator)
It's an old philosophy that is equally as true for the 'idiot box' as you call it! There is a distinction between programming on TV: there are current affairs shows, there are shows which tell their story in such a way to appeal to the stupidest of audiences (current affairs, soap operas, talkshows, etc..) and their are occasionally (not often enough) shows that assume an intelligence among their viewers (usually documentaries, etc.. ). It's like the difference between hollywood blockbusters and art-house cinema! If it wasn't for this unfortunate market pressure to produce stupid programming, the tv would not be known as an 'idiot box' and could develop into a more intelligent medium.
So far people's posts on here suggest that all they want from the internet is the same ol' same 'ol.. nothing too challenging in terms of navigation etc ...
I personally enjoy visiting sites with innovative design and navigation and can learn from those sites.. I find it a shame that those sites aren't easier to find. I also wonder how much information I've missed out on, because they have been presented in an innovative way in a swf file, rather than slapped on the internet in plain old html!
Search engines are great for sifting through information.. the problem is that flash content is sifted out before it even gets to the sifter.. (that looks like kind of a stupid sentence :))
I don't think something like filesize should be a reason to leave a file out of the google index either.. after all, doesn't google specify the filesize in their results? Maybe they can make a filter to filter out anything larger than a 400k if that was the problem there.. (I suspect there is already something similar - probably already been discussed)
I dont think anybody here is opposed to trying out new things.It's just they generally dont want to be exposed to it especally if they have limited time and were just really looking for info, not new ways to present it...
I am not asking the question whether people on here think it would make THEIR search results better, just whether it is would make EVERYONE's search results better..
Pardon another TV analogy (can you figure out my day job?): a good scriptwriter can write stories about things other than scriptwriting.. shouldn't a good webmaster also be able to consider an audience that doesn't want to know about 'webmastering'.. maybe an audience that enjoys entertainment, not just information.
There's a place for both on the internet.. in my opinion, it is too hard for the 'entertainment' seeking surfers to find what they want.
I don't think that Flash is purely an entertainment medium though.. it is a layout tool, programming tool and animation tool all wrapped into one.. There is also a lot of information out there in SWF files. Just wish I could find it
(believe it or not, there are also forums created in flash -- guess that's where all the flash lovers are :))
Other than the dial-up issue, I think this site is ground breaking. WOW! As an athlete, I am very close to this market and find this is the fine example for introducing Nike's different products to me. As a designer I am simply blown away. The ad execs, copywriters, layout artists, animation designers, programmers and who knows who else pulled off a mega site in the tradition of big time American media.
And as many in this world cannot afford or do not have access to their products, many will not have the bandwidth to even view this site. I would bet Nike is exactly aware of who can and cannot appreciate their site because of connection speed as well as who will enjoy the interface. >They do nothing without research.<
Thanks for sharing this link.
Perhaps. I'd never know though, because I, like so many others, back out immediately upon encountering it, especially if there isn't an easy option of skipping it.
I don't have any particular problem displaying it, I just don't see any reason why I should have to look at it.
I skip through long intros on movies too.
For broadband users (reported as 30% of the US market) the Nike site should load instantly, it did for me.
I've got a 2.1Mbps cable connection, and it loaded quickly for the most part. But there was still a noticeable lag every time I did something "interactive" like choose a toe material or a shoe color while the server processed the information and created a new picture of the shoe.
Pardon another TV analogy (can you figure out my day job?): a good scriptwriter can write stories about things other than scriptwriting.. shouldn't a good webmaster also be able to consider an audience that doesn't want to know about 'webmastering'.. maybe an audience that enjoys entertainment, not just information.
So let 'em enjoy entertainment. But remember that Google (the original topic of this thread) has a stated mission of organizing the Web's information (their word, not mine). If entertainment content has information that can be indexed by Google, then it should be indexed (assuming that there's sufficient public demand, which is still open to question in the case of Flash). However, the fact that a site looks cool, has catchy pictures or music, is animated, etc. is irrelevant in terms of Google's mission.
So let's look at the Nike Labs site in a Google context: If Google could index Nike's Flash content, exactly what information would it find to index? Answer: Not much. An interactive build-a-virtual-shoe application is mostly form and function with very little filling. Whatever information it's conveying is largely visual and beyond the analytical capabilities of even the best computer algorithm.
I understand Google's aim of indexing 'information', but funnily enough, people don't just use Google to find 'information'... in fact as pointed out before, 'sex' is one of the most popular searches (not information about it)..
I can understand that it is an impossibility to index pictures properly, but it must be a possibility to index text in swfs, considering it is already being done by another SE!
Getting back to the original aim of the post though.. I was not trying to defend one technology over another, just question whether those technologies are limited in their growth thanks to Google.. (we all know how necessary the google hits are).. I also didn't really want to debate whether a filetype was 'worth' indexing in Google or not (I assumed any dominant filetype on the web would be).
My conclusion thus far is this.. While not being indexed in Google limits a site's reach, it doesn't necessarily mean that development of the technology it was created in will be slowed. In fact, I'm starting to think that perhaps not being indexable by Google is actually leading Flash developers to grow the technology to the point that it WILL be indexed! And then, it can truly be used as a content delivery method, not just an advertising method!
I feel that reflects most people's views in this thread, however different their feeling about the usefulness of swf..
Search engines classify information using various indicators to discriminate between good information and junk. The indicators do not themselves represent either good or bad quality.
The most obvious indicator with Google is PageRank. If there is no manipulation, it actually works fairly well. But we have all come across PR8 sitesx that are pure junk, and PR1 sites that are true gems.
Even if Google were to index flash sites, my guess is that the pages would end up ranking very low in the SERPs. The reason for this is that, right now, the VAST majority of flash pages are not where users want to end up when they do a search.
I am not saying that *your* flash site is not the most wonderfully informitive site in the world. Just that right now, a page being in flash has an uphill battle to prove that it is not a splash page.
Now what I really would like, would be to remove any page from the index that automatically starts playing sound. I hate that even more than popups.
I am not saying that *your* flash site is not the most wonderfully informitive site in the world
Believe it or not, I don't have a flash site.. my site is in coldfusion and I'm very careful to be friendly to all my users.. :)
I agree on the sound thing.. .that would be great to exclude..!
I agree that IF flash sites were indexed, not many would show up high, simply because there isn't usually much content in them and there are way too many swf splash pages... but some DO have a lot of content and it would be nice to include those in the SERPS.
note: google will index a flash site, just not take into account any text that is contained in it, meaning that a site with content is treated the same as a splash page..
yes.
Google's algo, or however the world as a whole that is in the game of understanding the algo, is entertaining a certain view of the world online, or more to the point the internet.
Personally, google is a pee in a pod, their are so many way's to view the internet from; that google as an ROI model; probably represents less than 20%; which is a massive amount of advertising capital.
