One of my favourite things about Quirk is our public email forum. We try to keep each other informed by sending around interesting or important links - what generally ensues is a slue of responses, ranging from intelligent to down right ridiculous (although generally funny).

Last week I sent around a link to the TechCrunch article about Flash being indexable by search engines, something that is obviously of great interest to us here at the QuirkStation. We've always supported building one's website in HTML, as being search engine friendly is one of the most important things about a website.

Following this email, Rob and Craig sent around a few of their own debating this important issue. We thought it would be great to share as is. (For the uninitiated like myself, I’ve linked to the definitions of certain phrases and concepts :)).

Credit: Kofoed

9:15 AM - Kat

Flash can now be indexed?

9:29 AM - Craig Raw

Macromedia punts this every few years to allay fears about search engines and Flash. See this 2004 article:

No deep linking and a lack of semantic structure (apart from the fact that it's proprietary) means that Flash will always be a poor second in terms of indexability.

9:36 AM - Rob Stokes

I think this time it could be different. Why?
a) Indexing and understanding flash is good for users - there are actually some great Flash sites which currently don’t get the search engine exposure they deserve
b) Indexing and understanding Flash but NOT Silverlight is bad for Microsoft. If Flash can be indexed by Google and Silverlight can’t… what platform will developers use…
If that is their thinking, its great strategy work ;)

9:51 AM - Craig

Macromedia and Google have a deep vested interest in making Flash as indexable as possible - but unless they can overcome the problems I highlighted below, I don't see how this time it can be any different.
I also really doubt that Google will ignore Silverlight - the core of their business model is providing the best natural search.

10:19 AM - Rob

I agree with you, but this is the first time I have seen Google themselves talk so proactively about it: here and here.
I also agree that the core of their business is providing the best search results… but Flash can’t be THAT important if it has taken 10 years to get there.

John Battelle also recognises the issue here, but the comments definitely support your side Craig - although I’m more of a conspiracy theorist and there is no doubt in my mind who Google’s number 1 competitor is…

12:32 AM - Craig

I think this blog post describes effectively why Flash is currently flawed as indexable media: link.
I've noticed Adobe do support some form of deep linking in Flex via named anchors but then of course Matt Cutts has stated that Google strips named anchors anyway.

As a side note, someone also mentioned that a more indexable Flash might be bad for accessibility - now there's even less reason to provide a standards-compliant version of your content!

13:27 - Rob

So, in summary, Quirk's position on Flash:

Flash is still not nearly as SEO friendly as HTML.
Flash sites often also have the potential to be a great deal less user friendly.
Our stance on Flash remains unchanged: don’t build your whole site in it, but embed it where it adds real value.