I have been doing a bit of research on the subject of SEO accessibility and full flash websites and have put together a few responses on common queries or concerns regarding the subject:
- Flash can not be indexed by google using flash is bad for SEO.
- Users cannot click the back button in a flash site
- Users cannot directly link into a content page on a flash only site
In response I have put together a couple of guidelines:
- Prepare a CMS serving content to two different output templates one for flash one for html. Serve flash using SWFObject within every html page of content into the div that contains the html content. Representatives from Google have said that whilst this method can draw attention since it is open to being exploited, so long as the content is identical to the site content should not be considered as cloaking and should not be penalised.
- Serving the Flash on every page is done so that should a user click a link in google the website will load up the web page should inject a flash var to the swf as well so that the swf can redirect to the correct content.
- Deeplinking can be accomplished by writing an anchor to the url that is relavent to the page or by using SWFAddress
- Another way of creating permanent links to content is to have a link to this page link which displays the link url (cf google maps). This method is considered a little safer appending an anchor esp due to bugs within ie although browser history will be compromised.
- A last homebrew method for creating browser history is to add an iframe to the page and mirror page changes with the iframe this is the method that Flex uses withi its history template.
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SEO and Flash
I have been doing a bit of research on the subject of SEO accessibility and full flash websites and have put together a few responses on common queries or concerns regarding the subject:
In response I have put together a couple of guidelines: