Search Engine Rankings & Flash sites

A 100% flash website which has its entire navigation and content within a single Flash movie file - all embedded in one HTML page, faces serious SEO challenges. This is because search engines view the entire site as one single webpage because the search engine robots are unable to crawl through your flash 'webpages' for content/keyword checking as they can't access your flash file properly, only the surrounding html file that its embedded in. In reality the content that a search engine spider extracts from the Flash file is pretty different from what the site visitors get to see.

For example a simple Flash animation displaying a line of moving text can be read by human visitors as a single instance of text, but to the search engine spider, it may appear as the same words repeated numerous times. This means that marketers using flash sites are unable to optimise different pages for different (targeted) keywords. And also they stand to loose out in regards to the inherent SEO advantages of having multiple webpages with relevant content and images targeted to searchers.

Additionally as no external websites can linkup with interior pages within the flash site - they are forced to link up with the homepage. This means that flash website owners cannot take advantage of ‘deep-links’ or links to relevant webpages (according to the targeted keywords/phrases). If users are taken to the homepage and not the relevant webpage they have to hunt for the right content within the flash site which maybe troublesome (as flash sites are usually quite heavy in file size this task increases their workload un-necessarily). For example an online shopping site usually encourages deep linking as its customers will always want to quickly be taken straight to the relevant content before making a purchase i.e (a clothing company selling its wares on a retail site with links to its own site showing different shirt options – the shoppers are lead to the homepage of the flash site instead of the different inner pages where different the specific information about certain shirts are displayed).
Enhancing SEO of flash sites.

All is not lost for flash sites and they can still get high search engine rankings. Here are some proven SEO strategies to improve the rankings of a purely Flash site:

Split the website: Break apart the flash file and then rebuild the site by moving each of the major sections to their own HTML page. Flash elements are then included as-needed on each separate webpage. This helps from a SEO perspective as different sections of this hybrid HTML/Flash site can now be indexed by the search engine crawlers.

Have separate URLs: If you don't want to break apart your Flash file into different HTML webpages, you can still leverage the benefits of having separate URLs. For this you need to implement SWF Address like the one done at Blitz agency labs. This blog tells you all the technical details of benefiting from this particular technique. So while your users enjoy the browser Back/Forward button functionality, you still have the ability to bookmark your site, and the "linkerati" is also able to tag pages on social marking websites by deep-linking your site.

Build on the ‘off-page’ factors: ‘Off-page’ factors play a major part in search engine ranking algorithms today. Without making any changes in your Flash website, you can improve the search engine presence by persuading lots of quality websites to link up with your site. All the clickable text that other websites use when linking to your website will impact your rankings for that particular text.
      
Capitalise on accessibility features: Your site’s flash files can be built with accessibility features that enhance user experience of disabled website visitors. These features may improve the search engine visibility of your web-content inside Flash files e.g. accessibility features in Flash version 8 allows developer to specify a Name and Description for elements in the Flash movie.
 
Create HTML alternatives: Seasoned experts agree that an HTML alternative is a great option for improving SEO for Flash sites. This involves creating alternative content in HTML which helps search engines in reading its content easily. This is also a great help for people who do not have the Flash plug-in as well as for disabled website visitors. When you are redesigning your site, do build it with XML / XHTML first and then feed that content into the Flash files. Once an alternate website exists, set up the Flash file to check for its Flash viewing capabilities and point to the alternate website if the visitor doesn’t have Flash plug-in (this includes search engine crawlers).
      
Have an HTML addendum. If you cannot get your Flash file to automatically point web visitors (without Flash plug-in) to an alternate HTML page, do create some alternate pages that people can separately click on. Just add standard HTML link(s), beneath your Flash movie, to the most important content such as ‘About Us’, ‘Our Services/Products,’ and "Contact Us."
As a Flash website has features that you cannot get from other technologies, you maybe unable to avoid its usage, especially if you are in the business of creative animation or movies.  Following the above mentioned tips may allow you to enjoy the benefits of a Flash website with at least some of the advantages that SEO can provide your company or business