Can your dealers Flash website now show in Google?

[Jeff Kershner]

Great news for DealerSkins and BZ Resuts (maybe).

Dealer websites built with Flash has always been a topic of conversation here on DealerRefresh. Having a dealer website designed in flash has been one of the biggest drawbacks for getting your dealer website properly indexed in the SERPS. Search engines can see the file, but they could never see what was in it. Maybe things are changing??

Apparently, Adobe has a way for the search engines to read SWF (Flash) files and now index the information within. This means any text or links in your dealership Flash website could now be indexed by Google and Yahoo.

Of course with some "gray hat" techniques some of the flash website vendors have been saying for years that they were able to get their websites indexed.

Google is already implementing the SWF-indexing technology, while Yahoo apparently still has some work to do. Will this solve all the problems with Flash content and websites showing up on search engines?

Getting your dealers Flash website indexed in Google and Yahoo is one thing, but actually ranking high for the right keywords is another.

"Until Adobe makes it easy for the average Webmaster or blogger to link deeply into those Flash files, they are not likely to appear at the top of many search results".

Q. How does Google "see" the contents of a Flash file?

"We've developed an algorithm that explores Flash files in the same way that a person would, by clicking buttons, entering input, and so on. Our algorithm remembers all of the text that it encounters along the way, and that content is then available to be indexed. We can't tell you all of the proprietary details, but we can tell you that the algorithm's effectiveness was improved by utilizing Adobe's new Searchable SWF library." - Google

For more Q and A on Improved Flash indexing by Google, read the latest entry on Google’s Webmaster Central Blog.

I figured it was only a matter of time before this happened since Adobe made the pdf document indexable. However, there is more here than meets the eye. Even though Google and Yahoo are working to index Flash there are still many variables that come into stake. For example.."Googlebot does not execute some types of JavaScript. So if your web page loads a Flash file via JavaScript, Google may not be aware of that Flash file, in which case it will not be indexed".

Here is an example from a DealerSkins website page source from of one of their "Featured Sites"

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.billjohnsonmotors.com//Includes/scripts/jquery.js" language="javascript"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.billjohnsonmotors.com//Includes/swfobject.js" language="javascript"></script>

<script type='text/javascript' src='http://www.billjohnsonmotors.com//Includes/scripts/AC_RunActiveContent.js'></script>

Sorry to use DealerSkins as an example but it is what it is.

Eitherway, I say stay away from Flash websites for your dealership. What do you think?

 

[Eric Miltsch (blog)]

Jeff -

Good question posed...dealers need to (continue to) stay away from excessive/obtrusive use of flash applications.

Keep the site simple, provide easy navigation & focus on converting visitors for the desired call to action.

Most website providers haven't been able to optimize organically using standard site platforms - don't expect your new "flash" based site to magically appear on page 1 of Google. (I'm sure someone will be told this)

Eric

 

[Joe Pistell]

On the flip side of this, Google now has a "Skip Intro" link to take googlers right to the content page and blow by the flash landing page.

Joe

references:

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www.tacticaltechnique.com

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blogoscoped.com

 

[Chip Grueter]

There are some good tricks of the trade out there when handling Flash and SE bots. Without totally geeking out, the best way to load Flash is through JavaScript or AJAX, but it should load in such a way that it is replacing text and links that do exactly what the Flash does.

Of course, Flash should still be avoided where ever possible, and never used for navigation or content display. Google is going to be able to read your flash, but what good does that do if the content you want is burried in a Flash file that you will still have to manually navigate to from a SERP link.

Chip-

 

[Richard Valenta (blog)]

Jeff,

Can you expound on your comment "some "gray hat" techniques some of the flash website vendors have been saying for years that they were able to get their websites indexed"

Wondering what exactly you meant by this...

 

[Oscar Vanderkooij]

I agree that Flash will still have lots of negatives including the problem of directly linking to the content you want. If you make a flash application that displays multiple content pages, you have to remember that Google and Yahoo will index the text, but throw it all together as one page. That means that simple HTML is still better since you can optimize each page for very specific keywords.

Now, I am thinking that since this is a new way of indexing, some webmasters are going to use the flash files for a way of optimizing their site. Just think for a minute how much text you can hide on a page without irritating your customer. Now with a flash app on that page you can hide a bunch of relevant text in there.

So I think I will make a little image rotater flash app, with tiny little buttons (1 pixel big or something) so no actual people will click it, but the bots will and thus read all the text. Kinf of what people already do with the noframes tags and text behind other content through iframes.

Anybody think it is worth a shot?

 

[Oscar Vanderkooij]

Jeff,

According to Adobe's website, SWF files were already being indexed it was simply the dynamic content not being indexed.

Read this:

"Although search engines already index static text and links within SWF files, RIAs and dynamic Web content have been generally difficult to fully expose to search engines because of their changing states — a problem also inherent in other RIA technologies."

 

[Paul Rushing]

----So I think I will make a little image rotater flash app, with tiny little buttons (1 pixel big or something) so no actual people will click it, but the bots will and thus read all the text. Kinf of what people already do with the noframes tags and text behind other content through iframes.---

The same theory as hidden pixels, doorway pages, hidden text and cookie stuffing. Not a novel idea and against acceptable standards.

Showing the search engines one thing and the surfer another is exactly what Jeff meant by "gray hat", I think, in his statement above.

Here is how the spiders see the site he referenced above:

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tools.summitmedia.co.uk

All of the hidden text on that page does not represent the actual flash content. It is keyword stuffed deception used only for SEO.

What is nice though is if the G were to every take notice of this the footprint left by the vendors that use these types of techniques will make it easy for them to deindex this stuff then they get to start over from square one.

 

[Oscar Vanderkooij]

Paul,

I have to agree and disagree with your statement. I agree that it is never a good idea to spam the search engines, however there is a place for this.

Google looks at whether content is relevant to your website and whether you use keywords excessively. When you start adding content to your page that is off topic just to get traffic you get in trouble. When you use keywords too much and you get in trouble. Both these are considered SPAM.

All I say is that you could use FLASH to assist in SEO. I can see it working great on a landing page where I do not want the visitors to drown in the text but I want them to convert with a form. You simply add Flash with relevant content and without spamming keywords and it will help getting you placement and Google will not ban you since people get to where they want to go.

The simple rule for Google is: Are visitors getting where they want to get. Isn't that what search engines are for? Don't dissappoint them and you will not fall out of grace. If all web designers would be honest, Google would be out of business.

 

[CS]

this development only distances google further from their competitors, and isn't a game changer for me or how i will do things this year or next year.

there are lots of computers out there that are still stuck on the default msn/live.com home page because their owners are none the wiser.

people in the know, like everyone reading this website, are searching far more often than joe schmoe with his default microsoft search engine. google's marketshare is flying high, but google users are searching far more often than live users.

i design sites for firefox and opera in mind, too. you can't just ignore a chunk of the pie because one avenue looks awesome and is easier compared to the alternatives.

ps thanks for the mention, joe.