SEO - CSS and Flash website

search engine optimization style sheets flash

[JoJoAnne]

I have been presented with a possible redesign and am not able to find another post related when searching. The possible redesign is a gorgeous site, but utilizes flash and cascading style sheets and is not being found on the search engines. Problem is, there is [u]no[/u] search engine optimization! Client states he has asked for site to be optimized, but previous developer has not gone forward with the optimization and is avoiding the question. At this time, I create .html files with SEO in mind; SE indexing, creating good content, utilizing image tags, etc.

2 Questions:
1. Is it possible to optimize this website as is, or would it be best, taking optimization into consideration, to recreate the site using .html files only?

2. Never having worked with Flash.. will it be possible to link from the .html files to the flash/video files so that client may keep "video" files displaying products and how they work?

I sooo appreciate any opinions and input!
Thanks a bunch.
JoAnne

[anallawalla]

Macromedia has just issued an SDK for search engines so that their spiders can read inside Flash. No idea when the majors will implement it.

[yowza]

For now you should get rid of the Flash. Hopefully search engines will start to rank it well soon.

[jdonnell]

Why not cloak it? Keep the nice flash site for the visitors and give the se's the optimized html.

[piskie]

Cloaking breaks most S/Es TOS.

I would not do this under any circumstances. What you can get away with today, "WILL" get you penalised or banned when more sophisticated Algos and Filters are introduced.

Result "Scrap Domain Name".