JD on EP

Perhaps a little context might help. Typically people who I talk with who are frustrated with search engines and Flash have no textual content. They've got big shiny fun flying pages with lots of images and little text. They can't understand why the search engines aren't doing a better job for them. My response is that if you're pretty much all images, then that's not going to change. They can't see the images and understand what words they mean; they certainly can't do it even better when the images are in Flash.

Even with text being taken out of SWF files, there's still often not that much descriptive about the page. Here's the text from Nike's flash home page: http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:jEolTsmqbx0J:nike.com/+&hl=en&lr=&strip=1. IE, a big blank page :) Yet in Flash, you can see there are menu options, product options -- either these are exportable text or the designers didn't make them that way to help search engines and less Flash enabled souls do well here.

My advice is generally use Flash where it makes sense to use to complement text rather than replace it, plus check out the advice many have offered such as covered here: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060117-082751.

Thanks, Danny, I appreciate the context! (I was figuring I'd have to play an MP3 in the background to figure this out....)

I understand that bad "all SWF no HTM" scenario... if we don't have any hosting HTML, or if that HTML is not positioned for search engines in the normal way, then there would likely be problems discovering the content, agreed.

But there are few sites like this, and fewer significant sites. On the other hand, I've seen lots of comments from site owners who say "The SEO consultant told us to avoid Flash 'cause it won't be found." Many people apparently read that intended sense of "all SWF no HTM" as being "any and all SWF use" instead. Needless to say, that makes me quite sad.... ;-)

(For text-in-SWF, yes, not all text is held as strings in the SWF... many times people may put display text in as vectors or pixels, rather than embed the font outlines into the file so that arbitrary text can be rendered.)

tx, jd

I'll have to check out the notes from Danny's session. Where I work we've come up with a number of techniques for Nike to apply SEO to Flash content. Unfortunately there's many interconnected factors when it comes to SEO and Flash. Most of the solutions I've found require server-side scripting.

I keep wondering why Adobe (Macromedia didn't either) doesn't take SEO more seriously. That and the broken BACK / FWD browser buttons and inability to bookmark are deal-breakers for most web designers and their customers but these functionalities are absolutely doable!
If we as Flash developers do this, Flash deployment will mushroom and the Flash Platform will dominate not just for slick ads and portfolio sites, but the entire web.
As proof, I've written a Flash based CMS that enables users to create an entire website within a browser. As soon as a page is created, all content on that page is automatically search-able, bookmark-able and the BACK / FWD keys work as designed.
http://www.sympleton.com
Adobe wants Flex to take over the Web. It'll never happen without the mindset that we must create sites that don't break the Web. This mindset must come from The Mother Ship.

Joel, you might want to check information better before saying things like "take SEO more seriously", "back button" and the like. If you won't read me, then why should I read you?

John, I've been "reading you" for a couple of years now and find your words informative and often insightful. It seems you've taken some personal offense to my comments. They were not intended as such.
My interest, and I know yours is too, is to do all I can to help take Flash to the next level. I live and breath it. Hell, I mortgaged my house to give myself time to move from being a 'C' / DBMS programmer, to become a Flash developer.
I remember a while back when the push within the community and Macromedia was to move away from the "skip intro" mentality. Well, the push worked and the community adjusted its coding practices.
I just don't feel the urgency associated with SEO, BACK / FWD button, bookmarking problems. But in truth, those issues are far more important.
Be assured, I mean no offense. My question is sincere and my intention is Flash being given the respect it is due.

I would like to take this one step further:
Until Adobe uses Searchable, bookmarkable, BACK / FWD button friendly Flash on a major portion of its website, Flash and Flex websites will never be mainstream.

Sorry I was crabby this morning, Joel... I've been behind on work all day, and so reacted to the need to retype the "What *should* the browsers' 'Back' button do?", the bookmarking story, the SWF SEO story, all at once, by just bailing.... ;-)

Is there a particular SWF on the Adobe site which you could see benefitting from some type of navigation, or undo, or "tell a friend" features? With something like that I can get a lot more leverage for internal lobbying, thanks.

I understand crabby, John. No problem. I asked Jesse Warden (through his blog) about why virtually none of the prominent Flashers use Flash for their sites. Here is his response:
http://www.jessewarden.com/archives/2006/04/actionscriptcom.html#comments
I wonder if this is Adobe's position as well: That Flash is basically good for little ad displays, video, CD_ROMs and Intranets, but when it comes to public-facing, important stuff - Flash isn't ready?