Flash SEO - how to optimize your flash website

As flash becomes so important to user experience and interactivity you shouldn't have to sacrifice design, animation or interactivity for search engine rankings and traffic. It's now possible to use SEO on your flash website - best of all it's quick and easy.

I just read a post on Search Engine Forums about Flash SEO. It's a question being asked more and more as flash becomes the biggest thing since sliced bread and it's been evolving for the last 5 years (at least).

Firstly, I'll have a quick rant about SEO's who always declare you must make 2 versions of a website if you're building completely in flash. One HTML - One Flash. Personally I think it's rubbish, some suggest using Javascript to implement flash (bad luck if they have JS turned off) and call in content from databases. In an age where rich media is taking over, development time is longer and more complex - corporates can't afford to build 2 sites and stay modern in design and interactivity. (Yes, HTML/CSS 2 is amazing, but we are not talking about there here!)

Flash, combined with broadband is now at such a prolific stage in it's life that it's completely mainstream, all the biggest sites use it, and use it almost exclusively. Take Nike.com for example. Don't have flash? Bad luck, download the latest player it will tell you!

So as the world adopts such a rich media application, the latest SEO questions are becoming increasingly about Flash SEO. Is Flash SEO it possible? How do I do Optimise Flash for Search Engines? Do I Provide a HTML site also? Can Google take content from my SWF? Out of My database? Can search engines see the text in my flash (swf) files?

This is a simple question that requires a long and complex answer - I won't pretend to know everything about Flash SEO, heck, I'll post that question to Matt Cutts! But what I will do is give you another opinion based on what I've seen, experienced and heard!

One of the key points I think we should start with is that, YES google among other search engines can read your SWF files. It can follow links, pull out URL's, explore your content .etc So don't stress! (although it's far from best practice if Flash SEO is key to your business)

Although it's believed that search engines can only read the embedded flash file. I believe that to be true. (we will ask matt cutts none the less) In saying that, most professionally designed Flash websites these days use things link "container" swf's. These usually pre-load and position the flash site in the browser. Additionally this is becoming a simple trick to stop most people stealing flash code/swf's. This container flash file has no content, it just calls in other flash files. Hence, search engines can't read those external flash files that are buried away.

Which now brings a Flash SEO to question the best way in which to get the search engines the content from their flash websites, use container files to position websites, while still protecting their files from people looking to steal code/animation. So the new standard is born, professional sites with lots of content should be moving all the content out of flash (also speeds the website up) into XML files or external databases.

This gives google much easier access to the content you want to serve up!
Deconcept gives a pretty good overview of how to serve up flash content to the engines, but again, that uses the concept of using 2 versions of your website. Or at least drains your time by using JavaScript complete the task.
If you notice, that latest version of flash professional automatically publishes a div with id="flashcontent" and automatically publishes all the included flash content, in text to that div. It publishes your flash content & URL's with ease.

This, combined with the increasing ability for search engines to parse your SWF files, means that a serious flash development team doesn't need to create 2 versions of a website. That "flashcontent" div gives you the ability to place what ever textural content, images and links in there you like - you can do this automatically from flash, XML or a database.

DerekA makes a good post in reply to Deconcept here. But seriously, it's the fastest, easiest and most search engine friendly way there is to do Flash SEO - that I know of anyway - have your say, post a comment :D

To Matt Cutts, if you're reading this, everyone would love your opinion ;)
So just rounding this off, YES, there is a way to SEO your Flash Website. It's simple, it's quick and above all, the modern technique cuts out the labour of a that old 2 site version trend that I'm predicting will die off in the next 2 years - completely.

The technique: If your not an advanced programmer, let flash automatically publish all the content of your site into the id="flashcontent" div, Flash 8 automatically publishes all links found embedded in the SWF.

If you're more advanced and you store all your data as XML or in a database, write a quick script that will automatically publish all the flash content into that div. Make sure your script publishes with the correct H1, H2 tags .etc - which it should do easily because your a professional flash designer or developer and Ofcourse you control all the text and content styles in your flash site from external an CSS file! (note. if your not doing that, you should be!)

Hope this helped a few of you, or at least weighed up the other side of the argument. In today's competitive market, you can't afford to waste your time or money developing and maintaining 2 websites. Besides, it's the new "rich media" age - It's where everything is going and the search engines are continuing to advance their algorithm to parse flash websites at a rate of knots.

Don't get left behind. It's OK do develop your new or existing websites in flash to keep up with modern rich media applications, design trends and interactivity to wow your customers or visitors. AND still being able to effectively SEO your flash website and be found in the major search engines!

Good Luck & Stay tuned for more info on this topic. Right here.