great post, we usually tend to recommend a complete redesign whenever a client arrives with a flash site, but i have also been reading about the options out there, and the swfobject seems like a viable one.

more of these types of articles please.

Posted by Griff on 2009/11/12

Nice topic,

I would, however, go one step further. At a fundamental level, this methodology satisfies the search engine obligation (“The alternative content is obviously useful, in that it can be indexed and crawled by Search Engine bots.”) however it fails to wholly address the user side of the coin.

You mention that one can include 'other html attributes if necessary'. I would argue that the inclusion of other HTML attributes is vital. If overlooked, you are simply serving the engines optimised fodder (text), disregarding users (at least from a visual point of view) that haven’t installed the Flash plug-in or have JavaScript enabled etc – in other words, all they are left with is formatted text.

Although once regarded on par in eyes of the engines, Flash sites are not images. From an accessibility / usability point of view, the alt text method works for images, in that it describes the content of images, which obviously cannot be presented in an alternative, non-visual manner. However, Flash can be presented as a usable visual alternative, offering non-Flash users a holistic experience. Although similarly purposed for accessibility, the SWF object is not a fancy alt tag for Flash.

Jonathan Hochman of Hochman Consultants puts it plainly: “Flash accessibility programming isn't spamming, as long as the primary content and the visible movie are essentially the same. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) specifically states that multimedia content should have an alternative representation available. Accessibility programming creates the benefit of presenting visual information without losing the visitors and search engines that depend upon textual content.”

Applying this logic to your “Shaun is AWESOME” example, your HTML would result in the inclusion of an image, and assuming this image have motion within the flash, a GIF or Javascript event to provide movement. An alt / image attribute would be included (including the text “Shaun Okes”). Body text would be styled accordingly, with CSS. And so on and so forth.

Besides the usability / accessibility objects raised above, constructing a legitimate HTML version will add potency to your SEO attack. Right off the mark, consider universal search. While flash indexing progresses sluggishly, valuable search bait, such as images, videos go to waste. For instance, by applying the thinking in the paragraph above, the page stands to rank on Google Images for Shaun Okes.

More fundamentally, common SEO factors can be addressed more appropriately. Brian Ussery, in his 2009 Google Flash SEO, states that

“Lots of information can be gleaned from (X)HTML by search engines via, TITLE elements, ALT attributes, images, headers (H1, H2, H3, H4…), internal link structure, fonts, link popularity, relationships, site categories, subdivisions and sections. Engines rely on these elements for meta data as well as other informational “signals” used for rankings. More data is good data” but only when that data is available in a digital format that’s digestible by search engines and can be translated to determine relevancy for textual queries”

Most of the above refers to sites created mostly in Flash; sites where Flash is used sparingly for menus, call to actions, slideshows etc pose less of a dilemma.

Flash has never really needed to compromise for SEO. The correctly implemented SWF Object method, although the best compromise currently available, I feel, is merely temporary (though often labour intensive) workaround. We will have to wait until Flash indexing comes right one day in the future; some advances have been made (stuff is being crawled), but its SEO impact is minor.

On the topic of Flash indexing, Bobby van der Sluis, of Adobe’s Flash Player Developer Centre, advises: “Make sure that your HTML content is a true reflection of your Flash content, and let a search engine decide which content can be shown best as a search result”

Posted by Anthony Coe on 2009/11/13

Great comment! Ive heard there are Google penalties coming in for sites not abiding to the replica rule.

Posted by Duity on 2009/11/13

The post is entitled: "Options When Optimising Your Flash Site", but only discusses one option.

I would like it if you wrote more about different methods of serving "alternative" content, and also how Google index inter-flash content.

I know that certain objects inside flash files, such as blocks of text, are indexed by Google, but what page do they associate the content with? They don't: It is currently like a chimpanzee trying to fit a block into a round hole.

Do they have a solid way of organising this type of content as yet, and does it have any effect on rankings?

If it imposes too high a cost to redesign, as Griff says, or create an entire alternative media rich site as Anthony says, are we bound to serving only formatted text to those deprived of up to date Flash interpreters and modern browsers, when the market obviously expects more?

Posted by Phil on 2009/11/13