[update: This post is from February 2008 prior to Google/Yahoo/Adobe announcement for the latest tests please see Flash Indexing revisited.]
Back in April last year I wrote a piece called Are Flash only sites the SEO Devil? it wasn't ground breaking but did manage to bring out an Adobe Developer who made some pretty odd comments. Since then a few things have changed not least a range of new relationships between Adobe and the search engines so its time to re-look at Flash and how search engines treat flash.
Back in the original piece the lovely gent from Adobe responded to my statement that as far as SEO that's search engine optimisation not friendliness but actual optimisation was concerned Flash was still a no no, he said:
A search on “swf seo” beforehand would likely have showed you engines do grab the text within SWF.
A search for SWF SEO today will in fact find the same employee saying:
"that using SWF on a site means search engines won't find you. Hasn't been true, but the story keeps recurring."
He then goes on in the same article to discuss Sitemap protocol as the solution to the Flash issues! I'm not going to pick on the man he is a Flash developer not a search engine engineer or an SEO and he was right Search Engines can crawl flash files and have been able to for some time!
The problem I have is there is a huge gap between being able to crawl a file and being able to rank and optimise the file for search engines.
To see how well Flash SEO has improved it's time to do some experiments, so using 4 domains and nearly 30 different swf's I have tested for a range of common uses of text and actions in Flash here is the breakdown with some additional commentary.
| Yahoo | MSN/Live | Ask | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| File Name | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Text | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Text As Graphic | Yes | No | No | No |
| Text As Symbol | No | No | No | No |
| Text With Links | No | No | No | No |
| Pages via SWF | No | No | No | No |
| Deep links (swfaddress) | Yes | Yes | No* | No |
File Name and crawling content
The good news is Google and the other engines could identify SWF files and index them it was also taking their name into ranking consideration just like any file. So if I have example.com/mykeyword.swf emphasis is being applied to the ranking of mykeyword.
Content Crawling
Basic text from all the test could be crawled by the big search engines, so by that if you place a piece of text using the text tool on to a layer it will be read, this is good news and in parts vindicates those that say Flash can be crawled!
But (you knew there was a but you read the table) The moment you convert the text to a button, or a symbol or indeed anything else other then static text the search engines start to have problems, a good example would be turning menu text into symbols a pretty common task. Any text that is called via ActionScript can not be crawled, and while some text which appeared on Keyframes could be crawled this was not always the case. Overall while files were being read the contents were not being indexed and none ranked well.
Why is that Tim?
All those useful SEO tricks you learnt about H1 tags and careful use of strong etc are thrown out of the window content that is indexed in a flash SWF file is treated like content in a text file with no additional weight or factors, other then those outside of the Flash file. Many people outside of the SEO community and for some reason particularly inside the Flash community seem to discount these tiny little boosts instead focusing on inbound links and Page Rank guff.
Flash - Action Script and Links
Links out of Flash are not counted as links in the same way as Javascript links are not counted as such if you have content that is only linked to via a Flash file it will not be indexed, unless you tell Google via a sitemap or addurl or indeed a real link (Perhaps this is what JD was trying to explain as the major breakthrough). Obviously this means channelling 'Link Juice' through Flash only sites is a complete nightmare even if they are using SWFAddress. On large sites such as the Samsung website (an SEO nightmare) this issue can cause dangling pages as well as usability and navigational issues.
Deep Linking with SWFAddress
Asual SWFAddress is a little library that uses Ajax and Flash to provide deep linking capabilities its not the only one around but certainly the most well known. When combined with htaccess it can provide a seamless method to allow people and links to deep link inside your flash file. Google & Yahoo crawled, indexed and showed deep linked pages created with SWFAddress and htaccess, Microsoft Live/MSN sort of worked but every entry returned duplicate content and the Deep links while showing would return for results of terms only found in the first keyframe of the document.
The future of Flash SEO is good?
On first glance nothing much has changed since I wrote about Flash SEO in April it still sucks 10 months on but there have been some really encouraging signs from Adobe and the Search Engines.
- More swf files are appearing in the SERPs
- Some of them are even returning for results in which they have text within the file relating to the term
- Flash CS3 changed the way it embeds to use a javascript embedding technique much like UFO and SWFObject
- Google switching to Adobes Search engine SDK - this could be the big one and was half confirmed by Matt Cutts back at PubCon last year
So what is the way forward?
The same as it has been since the start, if you want your content to rank well don't use Flash! Simple but true, if however you need/want to use Flash then use SWFObject, UFO or the new CS3 method to provide alternate and optimised content. By combining these with SWFAddress + htaccess you can provide a feature rich full flash site, with an underlying well optimised site and have the best of both worlds. Such a site is not complicated to produce but requires two things; Flash designers to understand there is a huge difference between a site being indexed and a site being optimised while for SEOs to embrace the tools available to them and stop burying their heads in the sand with all the RIA around Flash SEO is going to be a growth area in SEO are you ready to take on the challenge?
Please note SERPs were monitored for between 1 week to 2 months Ask is notoriously slow at crawling so maybe I will revisit in 3 months time
[Update 01/07/08] Adobe have announced a new modified version of the Adobe Player rather then the old Search SDK to help improve the results this test was done prior to the new technology however the results are unlikely to change substantially. For more info on Adobe new Search Indexing and why it will hit the same problems try Adobe you just don't get search!
I agree, a small flash object to enhance your visitors experience can go a long way… But clearly there is little benefit is they never find you in the first place =-).
Sadly, no singnificant improvements here. I still recommend these methods:
http://seo2.0.onreact.com/top-5-seo-for-flash-tutorials
I have seen many sites in flash and having PR6
Good for you, now unless that was a deeply sarcastic comment you might want to go off and read about PageRank
Might I suggest Lies Damn Lies and Page Rank statistics.
Tim, that was bloody impressive, and a very smart experiment you ran. Whenever I come by it seems that you’ve figured out some other technical point about SEO or another innovation to share with the community. I got my eye on this blog
.
How come someone with a PR4 give advice on SEO?
Your funny! I presume you are being sarcastic, please see previous link given to Imran. oh and sorry it took so long to get your amazing comment out but you were stuck in Akismet
And looking at your own site seoexpert.com and seoconsulting.com one could ask you the same questions
LOL! Use this:
http://learningseobasics.com/archives/204
You too an recover!
Good Article. It’s good that you pointed out that currently the only way to guarantee all of you flash site’s content is being indexed is to build an html equivalent site.
Keep churning out quality content and don’t worry about the nay-sayers.
Flash still has too many accessibility problems to be used as an entire site so although this post was primarily about SEO, all the drawbacks of Flash must be taken into account when choosing whether to use it in or for your site.
I’m not opposed to using it as part of your site. A well made HTML website with some extra, interactive parts made from Flash makes a lot of sense. A site that consists of a single URL that only contains enough HTML to embed your monolithic Flash file doesn’t make very much sense at all.
“When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.”
I suspect that most of these Flash-only sites come from developers who know Flash very well and want to use it for everything, even when it’s not appropriate.
It’s good to see that the major search engines are putting in at least a little bit of effort to index swf files, even if they aren’t quite there yet.
To be fair to Adobe (Well Macromedia) they have taken huge steps in terms of making Flash accessible and Jaws reader uses the Search SDK in the same way Google does so it is at least partially accessible.
But given that Rich Internet Applications are inherently interactive and primarily a visual medium it would be impossible for them to provide a truly accessible version.
That said I will for numerous reasons agree with the majority Flash only sites are not really wise for a number of reasons and if you must do it provide an alternative using SWFObject or similar even if the HTML is not an exact version it is better then nothing.
Tim, I have been looking forward to reading the results of your test for sometime; but I can’t say that they surprise me at all. Pretty much exactly what I expected. I am running some similar tests with silverlight from MS; am awaiting the Go Live for Silverlight 2.0 – because it has changed so much since 1.1 didn’t think it would be a fair analysis.
Well perhaps while it didn’t come as a surprise it was still interesting. I won’t lie I was hoping for more but that’s life
Yeah it was interesting and nice to see someone do some indepth testing and share the results. I must admit I was also rooting for flash a little bit
Great read! Very enlightening to see actual results from your tests. I always have the bad habit of naming my swf files as main or home, because I didn’t realize that was taken into account when sites are crawled. Thanks for all the pointers. All the small boosts definitely add up.
It seems that the strategies available for flash SEO are very limited. In the case of my site which is more of an RIA than a traditional site, and the main content IS flash, there is no way for search engines to properly index the information presented. If you ask me the future is bright for RIA’s; static pages are so 90’s. Whoever figures out how to properly index and rank them will do well.
There are two separate issues here as I see it.
First, there are Google Page Rank (PR) issues. It appears Mr. Nash is not too impressed with PR issues. The real-life effect of PR came home to me when I was complemented on having a PR 4 for our Flash site, though, by a knowledgeable client. The PR 4 came only a couple of months after launching last September. So, I know that street cred is not a real issue with Flash when done correctly.
The second issue is where do you rank in a search engine result page. I have found that Flash sites can accomplish good page positioning, as well, with an all-Flash site.
You just have to know how to do it. Mr. Nash notes very well that explanatory pages and a sitemap solve some problems but lack H, b and other features. Well, that is not irresolvable. A Flash site serves a singular purpose: user enjoyment. The size of the flash swf file is irrelevant to search engines. There is not a wit of difference between what a user sees and what a search engine sees if you want to make it that way. While our site is not yet totally parallel, it is getting there. We expect substantial increases in positioning when accomplished.
When I last checked I wasn’t a surgeon
and its been a while since any one has called me mister!
Since I’m not really sure what your issues were I’m not sure if I can help or if it was a sales pitch either way welcome to the blog and good luck on your rankings.
I still cringe when I hear a client ask for flash on the homepage, although connection speeds are getting better flash does a good job slowing most sites down. This is probably due to the flash “designers” not having an once of marketing in them. one client asked for a 13 minute flash movie on the homepage when the average visit time was 4 minutes. Barmy!
There should be some sort of legal cloaking system in place for flash websites.
swfobject can essentially cloak…
i may have totally missed something, but what about adding metadata using title and description in flash document properties? i’ve read some things here and there that this will be indexed. whether or not it will rank high might be another story. also, will adding metadata using the tile and description in document properties work for multiple swfs loading into multiple levels??
If you don’t need flash, why use it, it is hard enough to get on the first page as it is?
Adobe recently announced that it had given code to major search engines such as Yahoo and Google to help them index flash pages. See Adobe Helps Indexers. Although Google has had sophisticated search tools already for flash pages, this contribution by Adobe will certainly help turn catchy flash sites into newsworthy, indexable information sources as well. Now it is up to SEO gurus to turn the copy on flash sites into something meaningful.
Unfortunately, as we have already seen it doesn’t actually help deal with any of the underlying problems with Flash, it doesn’t actually help with ranking content all it does is hopefully eek out some more of the written content from flash files by mimicking the flash player.
The bigger problem for me at least is peoples belief that it should, by that I mean adobe have gone to great lengths to try and avoid upsetting their developer community and consequently haven’t got any mechanisms in place to help rank Flash.
So rather then eeking out another 0.0001% of content out, how about they sit down and deal with the real issues and face up to the fact that if they want Flex (and its flex this was really about) to work they are going to need to at least mimic some of html functions or provide workarounds for headings, anchor text etc and then let their community decide if they will actually do the work to make their own projects search friendly!
Yeah…it’s still gonna be a number of years before I use flash exclusively on commercials websites where SE action matters. Maybe things are improving, but I’m still not gonna risk it. Too bad too….I really like Flash, and want to use it more, but alas those pesky SEs
Flash on your site certainly harm your SEO, cause SWF movies come with a lot of script which contains none of your keywords. That means the keyworddensity of your webpage will go down a lot, and so will your SERP… I just put some Flashmovies on my site, and saw my site disappear from page 1 place 8 to non-existency… I am busy at the moment finding a solution to this in the way of converting the flashmovies to .AVI but the quality goes down a whole lot. If anyone has a good solution, please write… Thx.
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