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Breaking the Myth: Flash Doesn’t Show up in Web Searches!

Publish on October 4th, 2009 at 10:59 pm

Steven

14 Comments »

This myth of Flash not being “searchable” is actually not a new one but it keeps coming up in discussions. It’s actually still a hot topic nowadays. So, where does the truth lie?

It seems SWF content is actually searcheable if right tactics are used. HTML code automatically generated by Flash and the content inside the SWF can actually be indexed by search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Last year, Adobe announced they’re working on a new algorithm that will enhance search engine indexation of web content created with Flash technology.

Still not enough proof, right? That’s what a Belgian agency said to itself before conducting its own experiment a few months ago. Their conclusion was simple: “Google bot can track links in Flash files!”. You can read a more detailed conclusion on their blog. No one says it’s going to be a piece of cake, but this is definitely a busted myth.

To find out more about how to create optimized content in Flash and why keywords and links are so important, we recommend a useful resource: SEO for Flash and non-Flash sites, by Todd Perkins. You can read it online at Safari Books Online.

Below are some great articles I’ve gathered and a video tutorial that might come in handy if you’re planning to build a website using Flash technology and need some tips and tricks. If you’ve found some other useful resources, do share.

1. Adobe’s SEO Technology Center

You can find here a few useful articles on how to improve your search ranking. You can find here some tips and special techniques that can help you enhance search engine indexing of SWF files.

2. GotoAndLearn

In this video tutorial, Leo Brimelow shares his tricks on Deep Linking with SWFAddress.

3. flash’n’seo’s experiments

The Flashnseo team have come up with some experiments to better understand, among others, how Google index text embedded in Adobe Flash or if Google can index imported SWF files. This is a good resource if you want to know more about the SEO rules and they work with Flash.

4. Google’s Webmaster Central

If you’ve got questions regarding Flash SEO and deep linking, the Google Webmaster Central might just be the place where you can find answers.

5.  J. Hochman on how to SEO Flash

Jonathan Hochman, a SEO, SEM, PPC, social media specialist, and web developer explains how to SEO Flash. He’s got some good ideas, so you should check it out.

6. Mathew Don on Flash and SEO

Matthew Don, director of the creative agency Skive, tries to clarify in a Q&A article the main concerns regarding Flash and SEO.

7. Flash and SEO, problems and solutions

This article I really like because he doesn’t just identify the SEO problems that Flash content may cause but he also presents possible solutions  to fix this.

8. Search Engine Optimisation Tutorial

The following is a video tutorial from Nick and James, from Creare Group, in which they present top notch methods on how to embed Flash for search engine optimization purposes.

301 Redirects – Search Engine Optimisation Tutorial

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14 Responses to “Breaking the Myth: Flash Doesn’t Show up in Web Searches!”

  • Jesper Åström on
    October 5, 2009 at 8:53 am

    Hey there (…):) hehe..

    Absolutely agree with you. There are ways in which you can make flash content indexed by search engines. However, in order to make it rank, you need to work with html-formats mirroring the flash content in order for Google to be sure of what you actually think is more or less important on your page.

    I am all for using flash content on a website, but I believe it is idiotic to build a whole website out of flash. The reasons are too many and all though it looks good for people with the same taste as you, there are still a lot of people out there who cannot access your material as it there are no aids optimized for them to use. (…)

    //Jesper

  • abadan on
    October 5, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    Hey Steven,

    Thanks for sharing, this is a great post.

  • christophe neys on
    October 13, 2009 at 11:49 pm

    hi Steven,

    First of all, I’m the one who did tests on flash and SEO, I’m also the one who wrote the article on the blog of the Belgian media company, better known as Nascom, you refer to in your post.

    Flash and SEO is still a hot topic, but what does it mean “Flash and SEO”? Don’t we have to ask us the question “in what point of view is Flash interesting for SEO”? It is possible to optimize a flash file for SEO but how far can we go with this, and what is the added value? You can also read another article on Nascom blog about “making a dynamic flash” SEO friendly.

    If you have time to read it, be my guest ;-) . If you have a bit knowledge about SEO then you can clearly understand that there are a lot of other techniques used to make the content search engine friendly. Making use of swfObject, html alternative, deep linking, etc…

    The fact that Google can read links, embedded in a flash file still doesn’t mean that those links are valuable. In fact, those are devaluated and don’t mean anything. But now comes the point. If those links are useless in point of SEO, what does this mean? That you will use those hidden links in flash files to pump up the amount of incoming links to another website? Will you use this in your SEO strategy? Go ahead, is the answer I would give maybe ;-) .

    I can discuss on this subject for hours but I will give a short explanation on this topic. Is Flash good for SEO? It depends. Stuffing up your flash file with links won’t mean anything in an SEO strategy. So, in that point of view flash is not interesting for SEO. The fact that Google can index links, placed in a Flash file, who cares?

    Using an html alternative, optimize this alternative and making use of other SEO techniques is a must. This is what we do, certainly with dynamic flash files. We use a lot of techniques so we can develop optimized pages, using flash but also using deep linking so we can use the url for SEO purposes and the flash does his thing (read the article on our blog). We use xml files for content, languages and this gives our developers a good workaround for maintenance, SEO optimized.

    In my opinion, let a flash developer concern about the flash file, let an SO have the concern about being found in search engines. We all know, search engines indexes pages. Google image search works for images, with another, simplified index algorithm. Google video search, indexes video’s and we make use of mRSS to optimize video! (http://tips-search-optimization.blogspot.com/2009/09/krijgen-jouw-videos-alle-aandacht_22.html , on my blog, it’s in Dutch but you can always use the Google translate (for what’s it worth ;-) )). Those are all services of Google, search (pages), image search, video search. You see ;-) .

    As long as Google doesn’t come up with a service like “Flash search”, Adobe can try or do what they want. It’s all politics ;-) .

    My two cents on your post mate. Take it into consideration and make then an opinion about Flash and SEO.

    cheers

  • Steven on
    October 14, 2009 at 10:35 am

    Hi Cristophe,

    Thanks for your feedback. We’re learning more every day. I appreciate all the useful info you wrote in your comment, and I’ll definitely check out your recommendations. Cheers!

  • christophe neys on
    October 14, 2009 at 11:53 pm

    no thanks and share more information on topics like this! cheers

  • Get Indexed Yahoo on
    January 4, 2010 at 4:45 am

    well I agree with this post, have you ever thought about how feed posting works? I read a post about that method being very effective for search engine optimization.

  • Vince Shepard on
    January 9, 2010 at 12:27 pm

    This is swell in terms of SEO. Nothing seems to irritate against it compared to this.This is just was forewarned about some years ago at the big hack con about google in 1994.

  • Noe Dolezal on
    January 10, 2010 at 1:32 am

    Nice keep up the good work. where can we subscribe to the site

  • Alice on
    January 11, 2010 at 10:31 am

    @Noe: You can find the red RSS subscribe button at the top of the page, below the Home button. Thanks!

  • search engine optimisation edinburgh on
    February 18, 2010 at 1:01 pm

    Thanks for sharing, please keep an update about this info. love to read it more. i like this site too much. Good theme ;) .

  • Search Engine Optimisation on
    April 18, 2010 at 8:04 pm

    Thankyou lots, I have found this info extremely nice!

  • Thomas T. Nance on
    April 21, 2010 at 9:20 pm

    I am really glad to see that you are putting so much of effort for encouraging the visitors with valueable seo posts like this.

  • joshua on
    June 8, 2010 at 7:17 pm

    i use flash as my entire site, check it out http://www.directgifts.com.au apart from just advertising my girls business flash looks great but its no generally friendly.. “not the files” but the people who create them and apart from links thats my only problem how do i get some one to link me from their site

    if google could only read as/ and movie clips, lol

  • Leslie Chessman on
    July 29, 2010 at 4:38 am

    Good infomation here, thanks.

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