Flash/Java enabled site - how best to open the door.

How best to open the door for SE spiders

[engine]

Just working on a site designed with lots of Flash and lots of javascript.
There must be tips out out there on how to let the SE spiders get at the food?

I know, I know, "re-design the site" I hear you cry - sorry - not on.

[tedster]

I've seen some of the music/entertainment companies get decent results with 100% frames and minimal but appropriate NOFRAMES copy.

[engine]

Thanks Tedster, the noframes text is the approach I'm looking at. Can you imagine the huge amount of script the SE's spider has to put up with? And not a word of website body copy - they are ALL graphics!

Anyone else with some tips?

[tedster]

There certainly needs to be some other tips, since Google is dropping support for NOFRAMES text. Also, I think I've seen evidence that Alta doesn't like 100% frames very much lately.

I was wondering if MacroMedia themselves might offer some ideas. Surely they must be sensitive to this limitation on their technology, after they've worked so hard to gain market share. But, I just checked out their site, and they certainly don't appear to be optimized. They don't even use description tags and their page titles are often just "MacroMedia"

Any one else with ideas on this? I'm in the "courting" phase with a big client who uses lots of Flash, so this coming onto my radar screen as well.

[engine]

Maybe we need to break some new ground here together?

[engine]

OK
Top tips for optimising heavy flash and js-based websites.

1. Sort out the kw/kp with the graphics-based text so that there is "real" body copy on the pages. If necessary, create new doorways and use H tags where possible.

2. Use noframes to help spiders get at the food.

3. Create killer titles and tags and position them at the top of the pages.

4. Use 1 pixel gifs kw/kp-rich for site linking and use alt tags too.

5. Use alt tags where possible throughout the site.

6. Create special doorway/hallways to help spiders get to the food.

Anyone else?

[Marshall Clark]

IP Delivery has always been my favorite work-around for this kind of thing.

[mousemoves]

what is IP delivery?

[BoneHeadicus]

Perhaps we stumled onto something here...http://webmasterworld.com/discussion.cgi?forum=21&discussion=157&779

[tedster]

I have one tidbit to add to the feeling of safety when using negative distances in CSS. There are DHTML effects where a moving element must begin its journey from a position off the page, so a negative distance should not throw an automatic red flag -- it has very legit uses.

I have a page with such an element and it hasn't been dropped by anyone so far. But the page isn't well ranked, either. This seems like pretty uncharted territory.

[BoneHeadicus]

oops

Edited by: BoneHeadicus

[BoneHeadicus]

Hey Tedster,
What if'n the css position is from an external sheet? Spidey cain't (or don't) read that, right?
Gut feeling...would you use this method for seo?