From the Community Discussion Listserve:
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 7:57 PM, Nichelle Walter wrote: >> I hadn't seen anyone post anything about this yet - seems like a pretty big deal? >> >> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/google-learns-to-crawl-flash.html
On Jul 29, 2009, at 9:05 AM, Nathan Gasser wrote: > If you're going to build an all- or mostly-flash website and expect it > to be valuable to Google searchers, it's going to take more work than > this. While Google may be able to find some content buried in your > Flash animation, if a user clicks a Google result, comes to your page, > and starts at the beginning of your animation, they're going to say > "Huh? What does this have to do with what I'm looking for?" and > bounce. > > My fear is people will say "Yeah but Google indexes Flash now right?" > and think that's the end of it. > > It's possible to build decent SEO into a Flash site, but it's > certainly not guaranteed, nor even easy. > > Nate
Nathan Gasser Rock River Star http://rockriverstar.com/
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Robert M. Hall, II Date: Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 9:39 AM Subject: Re: [PANMA] google learns to crawl flash
Great point Nathan.
To expand on this - even with the advances mentioned, there are still a # of best practices that developers building certain types of Flash content should follow if they want to make sure their content can be more readily indexed as well as to provide a way for that indexed content to be linked back to in a way that is easy to navigate and utilize.
Standard practice of graceful degradation and progressive enhancement techniques to provide alternate and complimentary content are key, as well as using things like SWFAddress : http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/ combined with SWFObject: http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/ or other similar techniques, to actually allow bookmarkable URLS within large pieces of Flash content. (The even better route is to use Flash to compliment you main content and not be the entire content itself). Code libraries and techniques like SWFAddress do make it much easier to prepare things the right way.
Its worth noting that Flex based apps (A framework for developing RIA's on top of the Flash player) have had deep linking built into them for a while, and history management, etc. - for more info read this: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex_3:Feature_Introductions:_Deep_Linking
There are also alternate libraries like URLkit that make deep linking and indexing very easy to add into your RIA apps: http://www.insideria.com/2008/09/advanced-flex-deep-linking-wit-1.html
For anyone interested Adobe has an entire section of their DevNet site dedicated to issues, articles and techniques for optimizing and performing SEO on their content, including RIA's, AJAX and Flash based content here:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/seo/
Thats where you will find best practices and some good techniques as well as updated on how the "Ichabod" player and search engines like google are evolving the capabilities.
If anyone wants more info, simply do a google search for the terms:
"Flash deep linking" and "Flex deep linking"
The main issue is that its really up to the developer building the Flash content, to be even more aware of the limitations inherent in indexing Flash, and to do as much as possible to mitigate them by knowing how to properly build the content to be easy to index, while leveraging all the available tools and techniques to do so in an optimal fashion. Or simply to guide their client into handling things in a different fashion if their is no other content or other avenues of having their content indexed and that is a priority. This is generally the weakest point in the process - if the developer isn't aware of any of this, or sking the right questions up front, then they are pretty much guaranteed not to have content that is indexable or as useable as the end client might have liked.
Two other items worth pointing out:
1. Many of the same issues that face Flash for indexing content, also affect sites that are heavy on AJAX, so a lot of the techniques and thought process used to solve issues or optimize things for AJAX type applications can be applied to Flash and vice versa.
2. Use Flash intelligently and for what it does best. I rarely if ever build entire sites for the web that are entirely Flash - rather individual applications that compliment or enhance the surrounding content. The things that are entirely Flash are generally games, kiosks, or applications that are either not deployed to the web at all, or are done so in a manner where indexing isn't expected or needed.
Hope this helps!
Rob
-- Robert M. Hall
Feasible Impossibilities http://www.impossibilities.com/
