i'm hoping to open a topic on flash and SEO. everywhere you look people say don't use flash if you want to be competitive in search engines. mainly this is due to the fact that google doesn't index flash text and links, although they claim to. however, it seems so lazy to just avoid flash. it is a widely used medium with immense possibility of content delivery. recently we did a real estate site using flash, and it has really forced us to get to the bottom of flash and SEO. before the site expands further, we want to examine our possibilities.

there are a number of proposed solutions to those still wanting to use flash and get decent engine placement.

1. Create an html version with full index-able content (most don't have the budget to do so and you have to deal with 2x updates)
2. Use xml to load in text content dynamically and present this xml to the search engines. (have yet to see any good examples of this though, anyone else?)
3. Cloaking your site (presenting different indexable content to search engines with the risk of getting blacklisted)
4. Use the Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK that extracts text and links to a file for the engines. The main drawback here is that if you have multiple loaded movie clips with text, much of the text & links are missed. (very few people feel that this is effective, anyone have any experience with it?)

Anyone with an opinion (other than don't use flash) or experience, please post!

We use flash on pretty much every single one of our websites and have top rankings in google in some of the most competitive markets for real estate in the US. People say flash sites are bad - that is not true. What is true is "sites that are completely flash" are bad. But there is no reason you cant integrate amazing flash, html and CSS together to make a presentation that is both amazing to look at, and search engine friendly at the same time.

A simple example - take a look at the #1 ranked site, does it use flash? http://www.google.ca/search?q=destin...en-US:official

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I guess that is my real objective. Can a full flash site get the ratings? A little flash here and there with html does add some dynamism as in your site, but what if you really want it all?

I agree with webmaster. The only drawback to flash is when it's over-used. When it's used as a page element - along with strong content - it can be both attractive and functional.

As an alternative, we're experimenting with an AJAX script as a means to display real estate slideshows for individual properties. AJAX is a non-flash, PHP/Javascript application. The difference is that Flash presentations cannot be constructed on-the-fly while AJAX displays can.

Our goal is to give real estate agents the ability to upload, say, six digital pictures of a particular property (no matter if they are .jpg, .gif, .tif, btm, etc.,), auto-resize them and store them in a file created specifically for that parcel.

The result is a slide-show display that is initiated in a separate (internal) window. Slide navigation is by mouseover.

If you want to see a crude Alpha example, go to our site at http://www.oregon.cc and scroll completely to the bottom of the page. There you'll see two links: Gallery 1 and Gallery 2. Click 'em to get an idea of how we intend to use it.

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LanGard MicroDevelopers Oregon Real Estate Agent and Company Directory

Personally, I think I've seen flash sites and I don't like them, although I might be misinformed that they're entirely flash. They are slow loading and caused my computer to freeze and I really don't know if they can be made to be search engine friendly.

I've also seen some Open-Realty templates with a lot of flash & I don't like them. Every time someone clicks on a new link the template flash has to do its thing again, every time a link is clicked. Takes up too much loading time & is overboard, IMO.

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Southwest Chicago Suburbs Real Estate is an affordable area with close access to downtown Chicago. Money Magazine says that Orland Park real estate is one of the best places to live in the U.S. Next door you can find Tinley Park homes for sale and get Orland Park amenities at a more affordable price.

Exactly. That's why I suggest using flash in moderation if you're going to use it at all. One downside is that it requires a plug-in, but that's pretty moot with newer browsers. Still, the Web isn't a fast enough medium to support movies of any kind, yet.

As you say, connection speeds are still very much a consideration. Load time severely restricts using flash extensively. But using flash in banners or sidebar elements is fairly common now. It's a huge improvement on animated gifs, for sure. Personally, I'm more inclined to stick with server-side applications because they are totally independent and cross-browser compatible. The SEs treat flash like any other binary image, which is to say they ignore it. There are a lot of very nice looking flash sites out there that, unfortunately, will most likely never be seen because they lack the raw content it takes to be noticed by the engines.

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LanGard MicroDevelopers Oregon Real Estate Agent and Company Directory

Can you rank a 100% flash site - the answer is yes - but not as well or as easily as with proper text elements and site architecture.

Basically, search engines are set up to look for different things, both onpage and off. Luckily for flash sites and poorly coded sites, search engines (Especially google) are very highly weighted towards the offpage (Incoming links, authority, pagerank etc) - but like I said, they are also looking for text on the page, headers, sitemaps, html links etc etc. IMHO If you are doing a website in 100% flash your are doing it wrong.

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Want to save up to 50% off Real estate webmasters product websites & common upgrades? Check out my latest blog post regarding our end of the year sale.

I personally like the mix of flash and genuine content versus all flash. I think all flash makes for a pretty fancy website but usually lacks real content and usefulness.

If you look through google search results you rarely see an all flash website dominating the results.

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Marc Rasmussen
Michael Saunders and Company

Sarasota Real Estate