Google search and flash sites ?

[Sketchrender]

Hi

 

Advise on this please.

 

I have been led to believe that if your site is flash based that google search ad words ect can not find it and you will not get found, and hence not listed when somebody does a general search.

 

Is this true?

 

I have a flash website and have been told HTML gets the best results?

 

Any advise how to keep the flash website and still get the hits?

 

 

Thank you

 

Phil

[maciejwypych]

You need to put meta text in your base html file including content and description of your site in order to be indexed by google etc...

[brianzajac]

Typically sites with HTML do get better results. It is easier for the search engines to find your text withing HTML than Flash because of how text-based content is built within Flash. Flash builds that "extra layer" of code to get through. Having said that, some sites that are mostly/all flash-based do get ranked higher than HTML-based sites. For example, go to http://www.google.com/search?hl=&q=architectural+visualization&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGLL_enUS400US400&ie=UTF-8. The 1st site listed (3ddreams.com) is a Flash-based site. While CGarchitect.com, a mostly HTML-based site, is listed below that.

 

Why does that happen? For 3ddreams.com it has

- Title tag - Architectural Renderings and Visualization.

- Meta description - that only helps in the search engine page listing. It does not help with rankings.

- Meta keywords - that isn't used anymore. Don't worry about using that.

- Although I cannot confirm (I cannot see the code), the code-friendly flash content used within the flash site does support the Google keyword phrase "architectural visualization".

 

While this may be good for him on this keyword phrase, CGarchitect.com type-sites win because CGarchitect.com ranks high for many other keyword phrases. So, in the end, community based HTML sites with lots of content we contribute get ranked highest among the search engines.

 

If you can do can combine an HTML site & use Flash components within, you would get the rankings + have most of the Flash content you need.

[maciejwypych]

Well page ranking is completely different thing that being able to find the page at all. It does not really depend on the fact if it is a flash or html site.

Google can actually index a flash site but it is better to put the relevant information in the meta http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=72746#1

 

As for Brian's comments - I agree but....

 

ie If you put "architect visualization" cgarchitect will be listed 1st.

cgarchitect has page rank 5/10 and 3drealms 3/10 - it means that you will have cgarchitect more often in your search result list ie "3d graphics architect" - 1st again.

 

Page rank checks how many sites link to yours and what is the traffic to your site direct and through these links(that is a major simplification of the process but generally it works like that)

 

 

Hope that helps

[brianzajac]

Well page ranking is completely different thing that being able to find the page at all. It does not really depend on the fact if it is a flash or html site.

Google can actually index a flash site but it is better to put the relevant information in the meta http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=72746#1

 

(***Brian) I did assume since 95% of all my customers who have said they want to rank actually mean rank above others. As for meta description, it does help only for the description within the SERP. What really works well is having a text-based version to supplement the flash-based version. You can redirect a user on the text-based page to go to the Flash-based page. Although this can be clunky if you do not build your Flash-based site right. For example, using one Flash file for the entire site will not allow someone to go to a specific section within your flash site without having to go through the home page again.

 

As for Brian's comments - I agree but....

 

ie If you put "architect visualization" cgarchitect will be listed 1st.

cgarchitect has page rank 5/10 and 3drealms 3/10 - it means that you will have cgarchitect more often in your search result list ie "3d graphics architect" - 1st again.

 

(***Brian) True, but I was using a competitive example. Your example is of "architect visualization" is much less competitive than "architectural visualization". Google Keyword tool shows 73 monthly searches compare for "architect visualization" compared to 14,800 for "architectural visualization". Plus it proves that Flash sites can compete in a competitive search engine ranking environment. Keep in mind that my previous comment did say that "While this may be good for him on this keyword phrase, CGarchitect.com type-sites win because CGarchitect.com ranks high for many other keyword phrases." So I completely agree with you on the variety of keyword phrases you can obtain for an HTML site.

 

Page rank checks how many sites link to yours and what is the traffic to your site direct and through these links(that is a major simplification of the process but generally it works like that)

 

Hope that helps

[Sketchrender]

Thank you very much to all.

All very sound advise, and much appreciated.

People obiuosly have opinions on this matter, and all very constructive.

 

Phil