Forum Moderators: phranque
Have a potential client wanting a site redesign, and the reference site they have given me is done entirely in flash. I've used sites with flash headers and footers, but I have never looked at doing a site totally in flash. The main concerns I have for a 100% flash site are;
1. Flash is proprietary making it generally more expensive to develop for, and it is not as lightweight or as widely supported as CSS which is an official web standard.
2. Getting good SEO with flash can be very hard as most search engines view SWF files as image files, meaning they might not be able to index content that is contained in the SWF file without using some hacky and time consuming work arounds such as storing the content in a separate text file and calling them in to a hidden <div> on the page via PHP include. As I understand it even Macromedia don't use a 100% flash based site (although I think there is an SDK now to help with SWF SEO).
3. Not all browsers will have the flash plugin installed, or have the correct version meaning they would need to download it. The latest flash player is almost 1MB in size which would take several minutes for a dial-up modem user to download, and would almost certainly result in lost visitors and potential custom. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as of March 2005 there were 5,980,000 Internet subscriptions in Australia (including both residential and business subscriptions) with 4,177,000 (69.9%) of them being dial-up accounts.
4. Web advertising blocking software often block SWF files as flash is one of the most popular formats used for web advertising.
5. Firewalls in use by a lot of companies often block flash as it can prevent filtering software from blocking undesirable content.
6. A lot of companies with an established and managed IT infrastructure do not allow users to install software on their PC, meaning that if a user does not have Flash installed or has the incorrect version they may not be able to view the site at all.
I am the first to admit that what I know about developing a 100% flash site can fit on the head of a pin. I was wondering if any Flash guru's can put my concerns to rest, or make me aware of any issues I may not have even considered. Any help, as always, is greatly appreciated.
In terms of relaying this to the client, it's worth getting from them an understanding of what they like about the reference site.
What is it they're looking for - the animation, sound effects, interactivity?
There's more than one way to skin a cat. You may be able to pursuade them that you can do something which achieves their objectives without using Flash and thereby reaping the benefits without so many of the disadvantages.
TJ
How does that site do in the search rankings? Can you show how that site works with Google, etc. Let them know your concerns; maybe they'll be fine with all that.
4. Web advertising blocking software often block SWF files as flash is one of the most popular formats used for web advertising.Never heard this before. I can't believe any ad blocker would take it upon itself to block all Flash content. Maybe certain sizes that are frequently used for ad blocks.
5. Firewalls in use by a lot of companies often block flash as it can prevent filtering software from blocking undesirable content.Never heard this before. Could be true, but unless it really is "a lot" (and personally I'd call even 1% a lot), I think your other points are a lot stronger.
If I were the ad industry, I would start giving some very serious thought about the wisdom of using this method. The clear outcome is that everyone who can will start blocking that garbage.
I wouldn't accept a client who wanted something so dumb unless I just needed the money and I didn't care about the client at all, I would never create a flash site, for anyone, for any reason, I like succeeding, I like ranking, I don't care what flash apologists say, flash is not for making websites even though high priced flash desigers would love for you to think otherwise.
The way I would try to explain this to a client is this: look, make a nice flash commercial, put it on tv. People will watch it, tv is good for that. The web is not tv. While you can use tv like methods like flash just because the web is so darned flexible, it lets you do lots of things you probably shouldn't do at all, like telnet, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Likewise, making a site all out of images is not a good idea.
I think many clients get confused, and are so used to tv that they think the web is just sort of slow tv, which it isn't, spiders aren't tv, google isn't tv, search isn't tv, flash is tv.
I would have some concern with that also!
I would point out to the client that even Macromedia's site is not 100% flash, mixing flash with HTML is still the best solution for "flash junkies"!
SE's are now so linked based that the content doesn't matter that much, in a low competition industry, a 100% flash site could still be made to work with SEO.
Flash for most of us is still harder to maintain than HTML, so the costs will be higher than a hybrid solution. Relatively static content in flash, dynamic content in HTML/PHP/ASP......works best IMHO at this time ;)
