Flash SEO

Does google track links in a flash add? I have the possibility to put some flash banners on sites, but does google track them? I can also make gif files, but those aren't that nice.
For example I can make the following link and google will index it:
Zilver kopen But when I make a flash add like this. Does google index the words? Voor het weergeven van de inhoud op deze pagina is een nieuwe versie van Adobe Flash Player vereist.

Google spiders/robots cannot read flash content, so I double it'll pickup the links

Similar Messages

Finally Flash SEO!!!

I've been working on Flash's "flaws" for 5 years and why they
were causing SEO problems. Finally I've found a way to fix them
all. Today I received my proof from Google and Aol that my
techniques worked!
First problem the dreaded back button. I've taken this script
from free scripts on the web and floating around. I molded it to
fit my style and my technique. My sites now use the browser history
to go back through and all flash website. This was a major SEO
problem before because some search engines wouldn't give you any
position if you couldn't use the back button.
Second problem, the detection system. The older flash
detection systems would take you back through the flash detection
system with one click. Google gave you 0 rank if your site did
this. With the new detection system and swfObject.js we don't deal
with that anymore. Also the click to activate is gone, ahh nice!
Third problem, deep linking. This works now as a bonus to the
back button. I can link to my site's portfolio page by sending this
link out,
Ohio Web
Design
Again this is an all flash site embedded into one html page.
Fourth and biggest problem, SEO in general, no content to
crawl. Well using the swfObject technique your html alternate
content gets replaced with the Flash file if the Flash detection is
passed. Why is this important? Google doesn't follow the javascript
files to load your flash content so they use your alternate html
content to rank your site. Of course you can cheat with this and
just place any old content in your alternate content. But be aware
this is a black hat technique and you will get caught and banned
from google. I asked on their webmaster forums and was answer by
google employees themselves. You must make sure that your alternate
content is very similar to your content in your site.
My proof? Last week I finished adjusting my alternate content
and resubmitted my site to Google. Before this I had 0 ranking on
any search engine. You could only find me by typing richardson
graphics in the search engine. Because web design is such a large
field my keywords were carefully selected so that the competition
is a smaller group. Any seo company will tell you to narrow your
market and you'll get better results. I did mine keywords for Ohio
Flash Website Design. This search is done on average of 1000 times
a month, which is way more than my small company can handle. I'm on
page 1 for 14 different keyword combinations of my main 7 keywords.
Aol also picked me up and I have just as much rank with them.
Google's biggest ranker is links, I have 0 links with google.
Check marketleap.com and you'll see, I only have 4 total. Now I
will be building my links so I can move up the rankings in broader
categories like flash web design.
Thanks to all of those who have every contributed any code to
helping Flash become equal or better than html... the day has
arrived where I can stop losing jobs when being compared to
html.

Thanks for the wishes guys and thanks for being patient, I am
quite low on sleep, :) but she is great, you haven't lived until
you've had a child.
As for the code I'm going to see if I can point you in the
right direction here to see if you're able to put it together on
your own.
There are two ways that I have been using this technique and
I'm not sure which is the best.
Technique #1
First you can make you separate "pages" of you site anyway
you wish to load. Whether its different "sections" in the main
timeline, loading separate swf's into a movie clip on the main
stage/timeline, or my method creating a background file that
usually contains the buttons and the background stuff and load the
page swf on top of it. I keep this file on level0 and load
everything else above it when it's needed. This stuff doesn't
really matter that much, all preference I believe.
Next what you can do is go to google and type in SWFAddress
2.0 and go to asual.com? Not sure of the address. There you will
find many examples of how all this works. Here there are two
techniques as well. On for SWFAddress.onChange and one for the
event, geared towards AS 3.0. I use the onChange way that was
introduced in the first version of SWFAddress and for AS 2.0.
Backically you place all the code in the second frame on its own
layer, to keep it organized and because the first frame has your
loader. I call this Back Functions, the layer name. This code will
include on SWFAddress on Change function and some formatting title
stuff, for the html page along with the include file for the class.
Basically on all your button code, I use movieClips, on the
onPress of your button you place something like
SWFAddress.onChange('/About/'); This code will call the function in
the second frame of your back functions layer and actually add that
to your title on the html page and change the address thus creating
history. Everytime you press a button you add history to the
browser by calling that function. If you hit the back button it
looks at what is after your address and the yoursite.com/#/ to find
out what page you're requesting to go back too. Now the tricky
part.
In the onChange function the examples will show you an array
called arr, I believe, that you just fill will the names of your
pages just like you're calling them in your button onPress
functions. arr = ['/', '/About/', '/Contact/' ... ] Then below that
array just follow the examples because there is an if statement
that tests the position of the item in the arr array and sets it to
a variable we'll call getIndex, a number. So if my about us page is
the second item in the array and the second line of my if else
statement looks like this:
else if (getIndex == 1){
unloadMovieNum(5);
loadMovieNum("about.swf", 5);
_root.pageLoaded = "about" // this is a variable i use to
track the page I've loaded for other coding purposes
So when you press a button it will call the onChange function
and figure out what page you wish change to. Then it will load that
page. When the back button is press it visits the onChange function
again and changes back the page previous. Of course with animation,
I use fuse, there is a lot more code involved but that's the gist
of it.
Now for the SEO stuff. In an index page in the examples
you'll see that there is a <div = #flashcontent> or something
like that tag. That means that when the flash movie passes
detection through the swfObject code then it loads the flash movie
here in the html code. Here is where you place your alternate html
text. This is the text that will be browsed by search engines. I
actually just start building a text version with a few images of my
entire site here if I'm using only one html page. Which leads me to
technique nubmer two.
Technique #2
Technique number two is just like 1 except after my fuse
animations I call a function called loadHomePage. That function
then calls a javascript code that is on the html page that tells me
what html page was found. If it's the index page then it returns
"home". Then I pass that through and init(thisPage) function that
is just like the onChange function but obviously requires a little
different coding. So I end up with both function the initPage
called when the site is loaded the first time and onChange is
called from then on. So if you go to my site and hit the index page
the home page of the flash movie will always be loaded. But if you
go to company.html then the Flash code calls the javascript and I
have the word "company" returning to flash. Then it goes through
the init function and says load the company page first. So the
buttons change and the company page is loaded first instead of the
home page.
Why do this? For seo purposes. I began thinking that if I try
and place a text/html representation of my entire site between the
<div> tags in the index.html page only what happens if Google
decides that too many people are spamming this and if your text
here doesn't match your flash movie page text maybe they will
consider it black hat seo. So now I have an html page for each page
on my website that will make the flash movie go directly to that
page.
Portfolio
page
Now I can seo each html page like you would on a normal html
site and you can push your links just like any html site and your
site will act just like is expected of an html site.
However if you look at my code I've been learning seo and
changing my text so many times that I haven't had time to make my
html alternate text like I've described as above but that is the
plan when I have time. So now each one of the 4 pages on my site
can be found, linked to and indexed by google. You can also then
get a page rank for each html page, but you really only have one
full flash website. I believe this in the end will be the best way
to go plus you have more pages html pages out there which gives you
a better chance of getting people to your site as opposed to 1
page.
Pretty slick!!!
It's all still a work in progress but there you have it. I
will one day be putting this all together and allowing people to
download the whole package already built but no time right now,
I've gotta pay the bills and sleep so no time for work that doesn't
pay right now unless you're willing to make a donation to me and I
may find the time. :)
A few notes. Remember to include the SWFAddress.as file on
your main timeline because the SWFAddress.onChange function calls
many functions in this class.
Also use the SWFAddress.js and SWFObject.js files in the root
of your site or in their own folder (that's how I'm doing it)
The big kicker here is you still have to know SEO or at least
learn it. Make sure you don't have invalid html code (there is a
test), start building lots of links, verify your site, the age of
your site is important. Don't spam keywords, use your main keyword
phrase in your title, hint: you change the title in your SWFAddress
code so in the html make it your best keyword phrases along with
your description because when the flash movie loads it will change
to the title you wish to be displayed but the search engines will
pick up the title in the html code. Be sure to use h1, h2, and h3
tags in your code. Use keywords in your image alt tags in the
alternate html code. These are just a few of the items you'll need
to do to get a high score, right now I know of 179 different things
for Google. Keyword density is a big one, you never want to out
perform the top 10 by much at all, just a hair.
I've been working on my position for two months now and for
my 24 keywords (check my source of my index page) on the 17 major
search engines I show up on the first two pages of of 202 of 408
possible combinations, so I'm well on my way. I'm number one on
several including "ohio flash company", I know not a widely
searched term but it was the first phrase I started with and then
I've expanded to wider search terms which is what I recommend.
Don't be silly and think you're going to show up number one on
Google with no links for "flash web design" overnight, it takes
lots of work. Start narrow then increase your search parameters to
wider and wider searches.
Sorry if all of this is confusing but feel free to email me
on contact me through my site if I can quickly clarify anything
I've written here. Also browse my site and look at the source of my
html pages to get a better idea of what I'm talking about.
C

Did Adobe give Google & Yahoo new technology for Flash SEO?

I recently read that Adobe gave Google and Yahoo new technology so spiders can crawl thru Flash sites. Not pictures but text. I was wondering if anyone from Adobe could confirm this and if it really does work. As a designer I prefer to work in Flash because I can create more visually pleasing sites. I built my own portfolio site in Flash only to find out it couldn't be indexed! www.kholstudios.com I was heartbroken. That was about a year ago. I am about to begin one now and am not quite sure how to proceed at the moment. Flash or Dreamweaver? I am a newbe coder so please bare with me in the terminology department. Any input would be helpful.

advnturgal,
> What I would ultimately like to do is have an all Flash site that is
> indexable. I know that is stretching it, but if Google is indexing swfs,
> what would be the best method to attract the robots
     That's a good question, honestly. As far as I can tell, you really don't have to do much of anything. According to the URL from yesterday (along with its external references ---
     http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/06/improved-flash-indexing.html
     http://www.sitemaps.org/faq.php
-- it really seems to me that Google (at least) is capable of "clicking buttons" and following at least some logic inside a SWF to "[explore] Flash files in the same way that a person would." The <meta> tag you showed belongs in the HTML document that embeds the SWF (that tag isn't supported among the few tags Flash Player recognizes), so while it may serve as a communications medium to indexing robots, all it presumably does is lead those robots to the HTML file. Whether that same "come hither" relates to SWF content inside such HTML documents, I'm afraid I don't know.
> Is there any trick to naming buttons or page titles in Flash?
     According to the Google blog post listed above, Google is "only discovering and indexing textual content in Flash files." If "textual content" includes symbol instance names -- I suppose it might -- then you could certainly try giving your target-able objects meaningful instance names (click the symbol on the stage, then look at the Property inspector to see the Instance Name input field). Be aware, though, that not every symbol supports instance names (graphic symbols don't). By the sound of it, though, Google reads textual content no matter what sort of symbol it appears in.
     On the face of it -- and this is conjecture on my part -- there doesn't seem to be a way to "tag" text inside your SWFs like there is with HTML (that is, by putting headings in <h1>, <h2> tags, or the like).
> I have also heard that linking to other websites is probably even better
> than using a lot of copy. How does that work exactly?
     Not all search engines care about linking (I think), but Google does. The more other sites link to your website (not you to theirs!), the more relevant Google considers your site. I don't think it's fair to suggest that linking from other sites is better than having useful copy ... the words on your own site are almost certainly the most important search keys. I suppose you could ask other websites to link to your own, but that could potentially get spammy on the part of the person asking.
> Do I have to negotiate with the other website to get permission to link.
> Is there special terminology for that?
     People occasionally link to my blog entries without permission, and I'm glad when they do, because it drives visitors to my site. If you choose to link to other sites, you'll be helping their page rank. The Internet is a public place, so as long as you link to publicly available content on someone else's site, you don't have to ask permission. If you think about it, that's exactly what sites like Google and Yahoo! do automatically! And it's also what I did by posting the two URLs a few paragraphs up. There's no special terminology I know of ... just "link" or "hyperlink".
> I know I have many questions, but this is the place to seek answers.
     This definitely is, and there are plenty of helpful people on all of these Adobe forums. Your particular line of questions is an interesting one, because it balances between HTML practices (think, the Dreamweaver forum) and Flash practices. In this case, I wish I knew more about the topic, but the links I've shown, while not exactly cornucopias of knowledge, are at least a good beginning.
     What I would do, in your case, is prepare at least some relevant copy (text) in HTML format and place that inside a <div> tag on the main page of your website. Use something like SWFObject (http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/) to replace the content of that <div> for people with JavaScript enabled and Flash Player installed. People who meet those requirements (most do!) will simply see your Flash content and never know the different. Google will index both the HTML content and your SWF(s). People who don't meet those requirements will nonetheless be able to read a summary of what your site is about -- that way, you reach the broadest possible audience.
David Stiller
Contributor, How to Cheat in Adobe Flash CS4
http://tinyurl.com/dpsCheatFlashCS4
"Luck is the residue of good design."

I have a question about Flash

I have made a website in Flash8 and all seems to work perfect
until I checked it all out,,, I succeed to make a working dropdown
menu, and I have a photoslider on the same side. And here it all
started, the problems....
When I open the menu the photoslider jumps from picture 1 to
picture 2, and back when I close the menu. That´s not so bad
but there are moore... When you click on the controller to the
photoslider something fun happends.. You see when the photoslider
reach to the last picture then the menu drops down by it self. And
goes up and so on..
Should I have the photoslider on a other scene? Or how should
a solve this?? Please, are there any who knows...

Google can crawl Flash, though I'm not sure how well, but either way nothing can read text that is not text - ie an image. The workaround - and still relevant for all other search engines, is to put all your content inside the div tag that your Flash is written into. The alternate content that one would see if they didn't have Flash, or didn't have JavaScript enabled.
There is a good tutorial on SEO with Flash on the SWFObject site: http://blog.deconcept.com/2006/03/13/modern-approach-flash-seo/
You can also just Google 'Flash SEO' and get a good deal of info.

Link for text page on Flash site

How do I create a text page for my Flash site to enable
"crawlers" to find it? Because my site is all Flash
(ctmgroupinc.com) web browsers can't find it. I was told a text
page can be created and linked to the site. This will allow
crawlers to find the key words. Does anyone know how to create
this? Is there a template I can start with? I'm html coding
challenged.
Thanks

Read the following:
http://blog.deconcept.com/2006/03/13/modern-approach-flash-seo/
Dave -
Head Developer
http://www.blurredistinction.com
Adobe Community Expert
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/

Flex2 and SEO help

Hi
I'm rather new to Flex2 and I had a general question about
search engine words like what you'd find within the meta tags of a
static HTML page. Seeing is it that the output is a giant .swf file
for clients, how does one address the issue of their site being
available for search engines, or is it even possible?
Thanks

First I want to say Shame on you Adobe for not addressing
this subject outright.
I am a java gone flash some 5 years ago and now am making the
switch to flex/flash.
What I say now is only what data I have been able to collect
the past two weeks on this subject and should only be used as a
reference.
If you build an entire website out of flash a search engine
cannot crawl a .swf file. Are there ways around it, yes there are.
http://labs.blitzagency.com/?p=171
but the time and effort is tremendous for a small team or one
person.
Flex does answer the back button issue with historyManager
class. but to fully exploit it you need to program a bit more
depending on how complicated a site you build.
From what I gather you are building a site entirley in flash
which is OK but you need to grow beyond this to whats known as a
MVC architecture which basically means separate out your content
from your view and store it either in flat files or in a database.
This opens up the opportunity to point the search engines to
this data.
see
http://www.onflex.org/ted/2007/08/flex-directory-seo-and-flex.php
http://blog.deconcept.com/2006/03/13/modern-approach-flash-seo/
This is a complicated subject and one not taken on lightly.
Is it possible, absolutely. However you need to think before
you build. separate out your content. point the incoming requests
to what there looking for...read and understand the mvc
architecture. If you have worked in flex you already know that in
the eclipse environment you are producing mxml documents.
perhaps these will be indexable as well??
im still working on the problem myself and am curious where
this goes.
Hope this helps

I have a question about flash website design and google indexing!

first off i want to say I hate HTML (call it HTM HELL) I love Flash.Im a big propononent of flash.OK about a month ago I built a 100% flash site,told google to crawl it,then come to find out they cant see any text inside images.So I did what i didnt want to do,I took all my hard work down and had to work even harder and created a fully 100% HTM hell site.and just under 4 weeks later google still has my flash site in its cache.the question im trying to get at is if google cant read 100% flash sites whats the point in creating flash sites(mine's a business site.)I want to get into creating flash sites for other people too but if google cant read them how would a person be able to do a search for say what i do:pc repair in google & then my flash site would come up in googles search results.This is potentially costing me lots of money.I dont like "coding" HTML i want to design in flash.HEEEeeelllppp!

Google can crawl Flash, though I'm not sure how well, but either way nothing can read text that is not text - ie an image. The workaround - and still relevant for all other search engines, is to put all your content inside the div tag that your Flash is written into. The alternate content that one would see if they didn't have Flash, or didn't have JavaScript enabled.
There is a good tutorial on SEO with Flash on the SWFObject site: http://blog.deconcept.com/2006/03/13/modern-approach-flash-seo/
You can also just Google 'Flash SEO' and get a good deal of info.

HTML pages in Flash website and sitemap

I am considering redoing my site as a Flash animated website with the text, images, etc. inserted directly into the Fla file. I know of the issues of crawling a Flash (although I have heard contradictory statements as to whether Google, etc. can read content in a Swf file). In any event, I will do this only on condition that I can resubmit a site map directly to Google. I am unsure as to the easiest and/or most effective way to do this. Can you simply insert the content (text, images with alt descriptions) of each "page" into an html file with no CSS, name them index.html, about.html, etc. and place them in a folder and then direct Google to crawl this folder? Or is there a better way to construct a site in Flash?

I cannot answer your question(s), I have only hearsay experience, but I can offer some links on where to get information regarding Flash SEO...
http://www.seobook.com/archives/001457.shtml
http://www.flashseo.com/
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/090317-120653
and the O'Reilly book: Search Engine Optimization for Flash by Todd Perkins, ISBN: 978-0-596-52252-0

Flash Search Engine

I've studied some years ago that flash website were difficult
to see from the search engines like google, so it was difficult to
obtain the first position of the ranking on those site. (google,
altavista)
Is it any solution for this problem nowadays???
Thanks for your help!!!!!
This is crucial to decide the technology that I'll use on my
website.

http://blog.deconcept.com/2006/03/13/modern-approach-flash-seo/
Dave -
www.offroadfire.com
Head Developer
http://www.blurredistinction.com
Adobe Community Expert
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/

Flash Search

How would you created a search engine to search within you
flash website (Dynamic Text)?

http://blog.deconcept.com/2006/03/13/modern-approach-flash-seo/
Dave -
www.offroadfire.com
Head Developer
http://www.blurredistinction.com
Adobe Community Expert
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/

Issue with templates and updating .html pages in my website

Hello,
I have taken over updating a website for the charity I work for. I have updated some eleements of the .dwt template page, however it does not seem to be updating the other .html pages for the website. I do not get the update pages box just a box saying 'You placed the editable region "breadcrumbs" inside a block tag. Users of this template will not be able to create new blocks in this region. Move the region outside the block tag if you want users to be able to do this" - I click OK and it saves the .dwt page, but does not update any other .html pages.

I cannot answer your question(s), I have only hearsay experience, but I can offer some links on where to get information regarding Flash SEO...
http://www.seobook.com/archives/001457.shtml
http://www.flashseo.com/
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/090317-120653
and the O'Reilly book: Search Engine Optimization for Flash by Todd Perkins, ISBN: 978-0-596-52252-0

Footer menu and drop up menu

Hi, anyone have implemented an iView for footer menu with a drop up menu?
My menu is affected from some conflicts with javascript for drop up and javascript described in "Best Practices for Changing the Portal Look and Feel" ("Footer iView in Framework Page" code sample).
Anyone have some code for this View?

You will find that Flash does not suffer the issues with SEO that it may have in the past, and in some cases you can probably do even better including it. Having your footer menu can help as well... even a standard html design will include one for access sake when the main menu involves something other than straight text links.
Here's a couple resources Flash and SEO if you would like to learn more, and you can also search Google for more info.
Flash SEO
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/seo.html
and the O'Reilly book: Search Engine Optimization for Flash by Todd Perkins, ISBN: 978-0-596-52252-0

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.

HtmlText fields show up blank

Hi
I am trying to load some dynamic text fields with html tags as follows:
_root.pag.pages.page12.home.htmlText = "<font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"24\" color=\"#FFFFFF\"><b><a href=\"http://www.sspaintings.com\" target=\"_root.pag.pages.page1\">Home</a></b></font>";
_root.pag.pages.page12.about.htmlText = "<font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"24\" color=\"#FFFFFF\"><b><a href=\"http://www.sspaintings.com\" target=\"_root.pag.pages.page2\">About</a></b></font>";
I have rendered them as html and selectable in the properties area.
When I test the movie the fields show up with nothing in them.
I have also used the _root.pag.pages.page12.home.html=true; but it does not work either.
The texfields contain nothing. Are these commands not good for As1 - Flash 6
Any insight will be appreciated. Thanks. Samantha

Hi Ned,
Thanks so much for your insight. Your comment on labeling it text as opposed to htmlText was really good.
After I did that it still did not show. I used labels from other pages that were working and re-routed them to that page and it still did not do it.
I realized that I had created those text fields as a copy paste activity from Frontpage into Flash. (Not that I think it should matter) but that was the only difference when I created that page. The other thing was that the textfields were all grouped in a movie clip something I tried to undo and it did not work it would go back and regroup them into a movie clip. I also tried naming the instance of the movie clip and adding it to the path but to no avail.
So I just deleted that page and started from scratch with a page that already had fields in it and slowly changed everything to what I needed and it worked.
The path is the same except the textfields have been simplified. You can see it in www.sspaintings.com>about>sitemap.
(Sorry for the delay you hear in the music, there is a movieclip loading in the background which is doing this but I haven't fiugre out why)
_root.pag.pages.page12.tf_1.htmlText="<font face='_sans' size='11' color='#FFFFFF'><b><a href='http://www.sspaintings.com' target='_root.pag.pages.page1'>Home</a></b></font>";
_root.pag.pages.page12.tf_2.htmlText = "<font face='_sans' size='11' color='#FFFFFF'><b><a href='http://www.sspaintings.com' target='_root.pag.pages.page2'>About</a></b></font>";
Also as to you input on Flash/SEO, thanks, I suddenly realized again how closed flash is to search engines.
Thanks so much again for your thoughts.
Samantha
PS: Can you tell me how to write the tag so that the page opens inside the window and doesn't open another window of the movie?

Seach Engine Optimization

Hi, I have a site built using flash, have looked into SDK but
with W3 regulations and all other search engines I think the best
way is to create a simple html site attached to a link on the index
page. The only thing I am not sure about is the look of having a
button that says "html site" or similar.
Can anyone shed some light on this topic??
Thanks
Carterkay.

This is the right way.
http://blog.deconcept.com/2006/03/13/modern-approach-flash-seo/
Dave -
Head Developer
http://www.blurredistinction.com
Adobe Community Expert
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/

Flash SEO

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