Flash Effect on SEO Results

[karlseidel]

I suppose this is an open-ended question, at least for now, because I'm getting differing opinions on whether Flash inhibits optimum SEO results.

I don't know the answer but I've just started to do some research and it seems this would be a good discussion based on your experience.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Thank you.

[MassivePrime]

Here's an old article by Rand about Flash: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/flash-and-seo-compelling-reasons-why-search-engines-flash-still-dont-mix

My two cents, Flash sucks the life out of SEO.

[RyanKent]

Search engines do not crawl flash (or if they do, they are hiding it for now). Furthermore, there are many devices such as ipads which do not display flash. Lastly, there are companies and people who disable flash on their pc's due to security concerns. In that sense, flash is very bad for SEO and users.

I would advise flash to be avoided UNLESS you design the site in such a manner as to display a comparable HTML version for devices without flash enabled. Doing so is more expensive, but it definitely can be done and a great looking site is often the result.

[karlseidel]

OK...we have quite a bit of flash on our sites - and it serves the purpose of telling our story to people in less than  a minute via the Flash animation. I know there are ways to make it non-flash but we've not set that up to work automatically when someone lands on our sites using different browsers and devices. Would you recommend anyone? Thanks for your answers!

[RyanKent]

My developer can help but any experienced professional developer knowledgeable about flash and html. If you cannot locate another one feel free to contact me.

Regarding the setup, the end result will be something like what is shown on this site: http://buzzoates.com/

If you visit the site normally, you will see the flash on the home page. If you disable flash then refresh the page, you will notice a very similar HTML version of what was contained in flash. That is a great solution. You can also note this site does not use the solution on all pages.