Value: [rating=5]
Our commentary: The use of Adobe Flash has long been a debate between agencies & / or internal teams. On one hand you have the creative team who promise that they can deliver a better designed & more interactive website if they use flash. While on the other hand you have people tasked with growing traffic through natural search which would say "it is impossible to rank with a flash website as Google will ignore it". Both are right... to a point.
It has always been difficult to really drive natural search with a pure flash website, the fact there tends to be only one URL (your homepage) link building becomes very difficult as one example. Equally though, up until the last couple of years it was easier to create better designed and more interactive websites in flash. You end up in a place where whoever can shout loudest usually wins! However, both are as much right as they are wrong.
For a few years now Google has been working on its ability to find, index & rank flash content. On a recent update on the Google Webmaster Blog they claimed to significantly improve their ability to index Flash content. How that actually affects performance I am not 100% sure as they are not clear, does anyone have a Flash based site and insights they could share? Please do so below!
Marketing implications: As with all marketing decisions the process on deciding the technology to support your website should always come back to your objectives.
Do you want to build a content rich, easily indexable website to hit particular traffic targets or is it about interactivity & design. Both are fine as long as they help you achieve your goals!
With the likes of HTML5 & CSS3 becoming more widely used, I would have to question why Flash is required for full websites moving forwards?! I also think that although Google may be able to index Flash content, it doesn't readily flow Page Rank around a site based on the internal linkage which is clearer to Google from the navigation on a "standard site" so indexing is one thing, ranking well is quite another.
Many designs compromise through a hybrid approach with flash elements for interactivity and visuals above the fold, but text content for SEO and accessibility below the fold.
Recommended link: Google Webmaster Blog Update
Recommended link: 5 Design trends for 2011
By Chris Soames
Chris Soames is a Smart Insights blogger and consultant, he has worked in digital marketing for over 6 years with the last few years managing international web strategies for a leading travel brand. Now the Commercial Director at First 10, an Integrated marketing agency, he helps clients get clarity on their marketing strategy and create campaigns engineered to engage with their consumers to help drive sell-through. Most of all, Chris enjoys working with talented people who want to create great (& commercial) things not just tick boxes.
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