Flash and search engines

Where do I go for a discussion on how Google's failure to crawl flash sites is stifling development of rich internet applications?

There is a lot going on around Flash and SEO, though much of it is behind the scenes.
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/seo/
and specific to Google and Yahoo, read this:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/swf_searchability.html

Similar Messages

Flash and Search Engine Indexing

Hi all,
I am sure this is a newbie question that has been answered before but does using
flash on a website affect how the site is indexed by the main search engines?
thanks
TermPat

Well in theory, search engines like Google are suppose to be able to read the text used in Flash Website, improving SEO somewhat. But in my experience, it has not developed to a point that is equal to a straight HTML site. In particular, if you are using xml files to provide text or other data to the Flash pages, I don't see Google indexing that text.
So as a backup, I would suggest using swfobject to place your Flash on the Web page. Then add plenty of regular HTML as "alt content" to descibe in great detail the graphic elements. Since most viewers will not see this "alt content" you can actually over do the descriptions and get in MORE unique phrases, descriptions, and text content, than if you were just using HTML.
So in effect, you can get your graphic elements displayed with Flash but the text data described in HTML. Is it more work? Yes, But if SEO is important to you, Flash of and by itself will not index as well as just HTML.
Here's an example of using "alt content" to descibe the products in much greater detail than what you actually see on the Flash page. First view the Web page, its just a simple .swf with a little text on it. Then view the source code and see the "alt content" that lies behind the Flash.:
http://www.ksowetsuits.com/
For more info on swfobject:
http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/
Here's a little tip to measure exactly when and what gets indexed on your site. Create a unique word that cannot be found ANYWHERE on the Internet, something like "myuniquewordisdellamagestic"...can't be found anywhere on Google.
So include your special words in both your Flash file as well as the swfobject "alt content", using 2 unique words, to see which is indexed first. As soon as that word is indexed, it will appear top position, first page. So Google for it every so often, once it shows up you know that content has been indexed. See which gets indexed first, the text in Flash or the text in the "alt content".
I had one site where I used a complete text narration of a Flash video as the "alt content" and had the VIDEO (actually it's alt content) indexed within 4 hours. Now that's a case where using Flash PLUS alt content give a better WEb page than just the Flash alone or just the text narration alone. Best of both worlds I would say.
Best wishes,
Adninjastrator

Protecting/hiding Business Catalyst website from the public and search engines while in development.

How can we protect/hide our Business Catalyst-based website from the public and search engines while we are developing it? It seems like anyone can access it, even though it is not complete.
We are using Dreamweaver to build our website, if that helps. Is there any way to have a test instance of BC that is password protected for development and testing? Thank you for your ideas.

I have something in my room but I do not tell you it is there or where it is or what it does.
How do you know unless I show you?
Do not share your links out, the sitemap is not on till you activate the system.
I have built BC sites for over 5 years and only one case for me of a client posting out an unfinished site got it indexed by google.

Bookmarks and Search Engine Indexing

How do you allow a user to bookmark a page or a search engine to index a page?
I am new to JSF and I am trying to decide whether to go forward with it. The company I am doing work for is requiring that their site can be bookmarked and search engines can index it. I think that most every site would want this. I understand that there are certain pages you do not want bookmarked, like a shopping cart or a muti page form, but item pages, article pages and so on should be allowed to be bookmarked. I think I understand how JSF handles URLs and understand how the first request of a page is handled. With this, I do not see anyway a particular page can be bookmarked or indexed.
For instance, this page in JSF would not be able to be bookmarked or indexed. I have seen many other posts regarding this, but I have not seen any solutions.
I did see an idea about placing query strings in a URL:
� /article.jsp?article=383276
would be something like
� /article-383276/article.jsf
but there looks like there would be issues creating an ArticleBean on the first request and then accessing it.
I am also not sure how you would map /article-383276/article.jsf to /article.jsp, being that you would have many different URLs and then getting the URL in the address bar to reflect which article you were at.
/article-383276/article.jsf
/article-245621/article.jsf
/article-145845/article.jsf
and so on
I have also seen there are issues regarding the use of redirect.
I would sure like to use JSF on this project, but this limitation may make it impossible.
Thanks,
Warren

JSF pages accept arguments passed as part of URL via param.foo
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?forumID=427&threadID=596838
Not sure if that servers your purpose

Flash/Flex search engine workings

I'm looking into using Flex/ruby on rails to develop my next
application. However, I have a couple of questions I'd like to get
answered before I go too far down the path.
I'm a coldfusion programmer that is used to creating sites
that are easily learned by the search engines. With Flash, and to
my knowledge, search engines cannot "learn" a site. Is this true
and how does everyone work around this?
Finally, how does performance work on a flex website? I can
get a lot of people to hit a CF site hard without having to worry
about hardware and upgrades. Will I have issues with flex? How well
does Flex scale?
Regards,
Scott

I'm looking into using Flex/ruby on rails to develop my next
application. However, I have a couple of questions I'd like to get
answered before I go too far down the path.
I'm a coldfusion programmer that is used to creating sites
that are easily learned by the search engines. With Flash, and to
my knowledge, search engines cannot "learn" a site. Is this true
and how does everyone work around this?
Finally, how does performance work on a flex website? I can
get a lot of people to hit a CF site hard without having to worry
about hardware and upgrades. Will I have issues with flex? How well
does Flex scale?
Regards,
Scott

Flex and search engines

Hi all,
I looked at old messages, but couldnt really find an answer in recent subjects.
I had my website in HTML before, and it was pretty high indexed in all the search
engines. Now I moved exactly the same information into a flex application and
it can't be found on the same positions anymore in the search engines.
What can I do to get back my old rating ?
Do I have to put the source open ? Or can it be found with hidden code as well ?
Thanks for all info.
regards,
Patrick

These links give information on Flash SEO:
http://www.beussery.com/blog/index.php/2008/10/google-flash-seo/
http://www.ip-seo.com/latest/2009/06/how-does-google-read-flash/
http://bevelwise.com/blog/2008/09/how-to-seo-flash.aspx
If this post answers your question or helps, please mark it as such.

Why is there a one-inch gap between FF logo and search engines?(I'm using FF4).

I recently downloaded FF 4.I'm not technically savvy,and was a bit confused to see a drop down menu and the word "Firefox".
I didn't like the new set-up and managed to delete it, in favor of the logo.
Now,the opening page is in the background and there is a one-inch gap between the logo and the search engine.Is there a way to have a space reduction?
F11 is NOT a resolution.

You can make FF4 look like FF3 by doing the following. 
* Right click a blank part of the tab bar and click "Tabs on top" to remove the checkmark. Tabs will subsequently reappear below the search bar. 
* Repeat the same steps, but click the top one called "Menu bar". This will reinstate the text links at the top. 
* To rearrange the layout, repeat the same steps again and choose "Customize". A panel will open and while that remains onscreen, you can move elements like toolbars, buttons etc around and place them anywhere you wish. You can also drag anything you don't like into that panel and add anything you want by dragging it out of there. 
* To replace the status bar at the foot of the page, install this add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/status-4-evar/

Domain name and search engines

Hi
There have been a few helpful postings about the importance
of having text on your frontpage for crawlers etc to improve your
search ranking. My question: how important is the domain name for
search engines? Is it worth investing a dime or 2 on a good generic
domain? If you needed to have 2 words (e.g. www.top-lawyer.com) is
it better to have them combined (e.g. www.toplawyer.com).
PS This is just an example...I am not a lawyer!

"Airborne Bob" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:[email protected]...
> Gareth:
>
> In my case, I have created my website at Domain Name
> www.LBIBeachRentals.NET.
> The .COM version was not available at the time I
obtained it.
>
> But I just purchased the .COM version this past Friday
because it became
> available and it's the more commonly accepted URL (and
as a preventative
> measure against someone else getting my rental people).
>
> Network Solutions tells me it's no problem.... they'll
just direct (or
> "point")the .COM to my .NET website. Is this okay in
terms of search?
> Are you
> saying I will somewhat diminish ranking by doing this?
>
> TIA for any advice on what I'm doing.
I think that your both confusing "domain names" and
"domain/web space
hosting" here.
Typically you register with a hosting company and receive an
amount of disk
space. bandwith etc and a domain name, say
www.thru-the-net.com
You create your web site and upload it to the serve and
people can access
your web site at www.thru-the-net.com
Now you realise that many people outside the US are entering
www.through-the-net.com so you get your provider to register
www.through-the-net.com for you as well and they POINT this
address to
www.thru-the-net.com. That is to say when people enter
www.through-net.com
the actually end up at www.thru-the net.com i.e. the same
place.
This is o.k. you can have as many variations as you want -
www.thru-the-net.com
www.through-the-net.com
www.thruthenet.com
www.throughthenet.com
www.thru-the-net.net
www.through-the-net.net
etc. all pointing to the same www.thru-the-net.com server.
This is o.k. and
the search engines don't mind this.
BUT
If you have SEPARATE web space for each of these domain name
variants and
just copy your entire site into each of these spaces, now the
domains are
not being forwarded. They are entirely stand alone domains
that are all the
same.
Search engines DON'T like these and see them as an attempt at
improving
ranking and therefore penalise all of them.
Sorry for being so long winded, but hopefully this makes
sense.
Regards
Phill

Flash on search engines

Hi,
Does the latest version of flash (8) improved enough to make
flash sites
more SEO friendly?
anyone has any tips?
thanks in advance!

I've tried another way using php, not sure is it a proper
way, but so far it is quite efficient. Check this site
http://www.muzakraf.com/
1 website, 1 php, multiple swf files, 1 for each page, pages
swf loaded into 1 main swf. Each page of the flash site indexed by
those major search engine.
http://www.google.com.my/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.muzakraf.com&meta=
http://search.msn.com.my/results.aspx?q=site%3Awww.muzakraf.com&form=QBRE
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.muzakraf.com&bwmf=d&bwm= p&bwms=p
May be there are some other better way. Give me some feedback
too.

Address line and Search engines not working after download

I reloaded Firefox 20.0 this a.m. I have no functional use of the address line nor do I have use of the Search box. No search engines drop down and when I go into Manage Search, nothing can be activated. All of the .xml files for the search engines are available in the Searchplugins file.
Any suggestions?

Try to delete the search.json file and a possible search.sqlite file in the Firefox Profile Folder.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
Firefox will rebuild the search.json file from the default search engines in the searchplugins folder in the Firefox program folder and the searchplugins folder in the Firefox profile folder.
Try to open a new window (Firefox > New Tab > New Window) to see if that window works.
Make sure that toolbars like the "Navigation Toolbar" and the "Bookmarks Toolbar" are visible:
*Firefox menu button > Options
*View > Toolbars (press F10 to display a hidden menu bar)
Open the Customize window to set which toolbar items to display:
*Firefox menu button > Options
*View > Toolbars (press F10 to display the menu bar)
*Right-click empty toolbar area
*check that "Bookmarks Toolbar items" is on the Bookmarks Toolbar
*If the "Bookmarks Toolbar items" is not on the Bookmarks Toolbar then drag it back from the toolbar palette in the customize window to the Bookmarks Toolbar
*if missing items are in the toolbar palette then drag them back from the Customize window on the toolbar
*if you do not see an item on a toolbar and in the toolbar palette then click the "Restore Default Set" button to restore the default toolbar set up
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/How+to+customize+the+toolbar
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Back+and+forward+or+other+toolbar+items+are+missing

Dreamweaver templates and search engines

I am running into a problem while building sites using
Dreamweaver's Template option. These sites are not easily found by
search engines. Anyone have any solutions?... without having to
stop using templates?
THANKS MUCH
cineaste_grrl

I can unequivocally guarantee you that there is no relation
between your use
of templates and your site's ranking by search engines. Can
you post a link
to the site, though, so we can see what the problem might be?
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Adobe Community Expert
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
==================
http://www.dreamweavermx-templates.com
- Template Triage!
http://www.projectseven.com/go
- DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
http://www.dwfaq.com - DW FAQs,
Tutorials & Resources
http://www.macromedia.com/support/search/
- Macromedia (MM) Technotes
==================
"Cineaste_grrl" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:el1r2q$r0j$[email protected]..
>I am running into a problem while building sites using
Dreamweaver's
>Template
> option. These sites are not easily found by search
engines. Anyone have
> any
> solutions?... without having to stop using templates?
>
> THANKS MUCH
> cineaste_grrl
>

Spry and Search Engines

I like the framework and the ease of use. Does anyone know to
what
degree the search engines will evaluate the spry tags, if at
all? My
guess is that a hybrid will be needed as discussed at the
bottom of this
page:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/articles/data_set_overview/,
and
here:
http://domscripting.com/blog/display/41.
Any other ideas? All of my customers are extremely
search-engine sensitive.
Rod

Hey Rod,
As far as I know, search engines read source code. In that
regard, Spry Data in general will fail since, the content is not
kept in the source code.
Check out the data set overview about the spry:content
attribute. That is used so that pages are more accessible and it
helps search engine stuff as well.
It allows you to have static content on the page, but
spry:content will replace that content on the screen with its data.
So this allows for content for search engines to read, plus
the dynamic aspect of spry data.
But in general, Spry and Ajax, doesn't yet play well with
these other technologies.
Hope this helps.
Donald Booth
Adobe Spry Team

Text and search engines?

Hello All,
In one of my posts a while back I found out from all the great support here that if I add a drop shadow to my text (on my website) the font will show up exactly the same in any browser (which is a good bit of information to know.
However, if you add a drop shadow to to your text search engines will not pick up the words anymore.
My questions is: If I type in the headings along the bottom of my website so things like: WE TRANSFER HOME MOVIES TO DVD SUPER 8 FILM TRANSFER and that kind of stuff will that serve the same purpose? (the search engines will pick up those words) Do I have to leave a space between the headings?
Thanks for your help,
Mike

If it's text a search engine will recognize it.

Safari 5.1.8 slow loading pages missing functions and search engines

As of this morning (3/30/13) I feel like my internet provider removed the guts of my internet connection. I have a Comcast modem and use an ethernet to connect it to my computer. I also have an ATT smartphone which gives me a mobile hotspot ability and everything with my internet is fine using the wi-fi connection. The problem using the secure line/modem from Comcast is that it does not allow me to use any of the 3 search engines and unexpectedly quit Yahoo the only time the connection was established. Facebook doesn't load. If you give things enough time my gmail will look like it's up but emails don't open. the msnbc portal will show the visual headlines but not the videos for its Nightly News. Hulu works fine. I watched 3 episodes of a Network show. Comcast is sending technicians out to check the cable interface. Or is it something with Safari, or another recent Sofware Update item? Thanks for any help.

How do you turn IPv6 off in Safari 5.1.10?
I don't see anyway to do this.
Lately, Safari is not only loading slowly upon initial opening, but it's also slow to load new pages, and it's regularly loosing contact with webpages in previous tabs I opened. I'll go back to a tab, after moving to a new one, only to find it blank, and then I have to reload it, which takes f o r e v e r !
Then I find my entire system get stuck and I can't do anything. Sometimes I can force quit an application and other times not. Many times lately, I find my computer is just frozen and all I can do is reboot it manually to get it working again.

Spry xml dataset driven page and search engines

If a page uses Spry xml dataset to present products to a
visitor, what do google and yahoo crawlers see in that page?
I'm asking because i plan to rewrite our products' static
pages using spry xml dataset, and i'd like to ensure crawlers see
the products. I haven't looked much, yet, into this pry capability,
but the products page will most probably be paginated (not sure if
possible in this capability) since there are hundreds of products.
currently, our static html pages generated good conversions
into purchases from google and yahoo searches.
It would be great if there is a real-life website that uses
this spry capability and has their pages appear in those search
engines.
thanks.

If a page uses Spry xml dataset to present products to a
visitor, what do google and yahoo crawlers see in that page?
search bot do not read / understand javascript. So they would
not index it.
Its a commen point of failure of the ajax techniques, Spry
has a handy solution for it (spry:content) wich will allow u to
overwrite 'content' if javascript is enabled so and bots will just
see the static page.

Flash and search engines

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for