is flash detrimental to seo ?

[flynnboy]

Hi Guys

First I must say that I am not a web developer as such and a lot of this stuff is over my head.

I develop my own web site and recently changed from a conventional html site to one based upon flash through a hosting package. It seems that my site has slipped on Google since I did this.

Can you say in simple terms if Flash is detrimental to my seo ? Should I go back to html ?

One thing I did notice with this package is that unlike before I cannot attach alt tags to all of my images e.g. contained within a slide show, whereas before every picture had an alt and title tag. Perhaps this is not good for the bots ?

I'd really appreciate some easy to understand and poignant advice.

Thanks

 

[Forbairt]

Any webdesigner with a basic understanding of SEO will tell you avoid flash like the plague ...

Sure you can use it for nice little effects but a lot of these can these days be replaced with JS

Flash in general doesn't let you link to pages / sections ... include h1 h2 h3 .. and so on tags ... strong elements ...

What does google see? .. a flash file .. and it may be able to index the text in there ( I believe it can ) but erm... how is your content in the file laid out ?

Can people easily create inbound links ? to your various pages

My advice unless you've a specific reason for flash (ie you're some kinda media company showcasing stuff) ditch it and ditch it fast

 

[link8r]

Just to add to that advice, which is really good and should be taken as to why Flash shouldn't be used to build a site.

You won't get penalised for using Flash - its if you only or mostly use flash. I think flash offers some great functions, many of which can be implemented using JavaScript.

I have flash on two of my seo sites - I don't think it's been detrimental at all

 

[flynnboy]

Thanks guys

I actually ditched the flash site this morning and I've gone back to my html site. Another thing I discovered today is that when I tried printing one of the pages from my flash site - it printed an empty cell....... and this was the case with every page I tried to print off. This might piss off potential clients wanting to print off info'. It might also indicate what the bots see ?! The site was entirely flash and for example if you clicked on 'view source' on any page other than the index page the only source you could see was in fact the source for the index page and nothing else. Another aspect of the site which I was suspicious of in terms of seo is that it was not possible to give a title or alt tag to any picture in a gallery or slide show.

I became suspicious about this flash site when I discovered that my ranking on google had fallen since I launched the new site, which was a package from my hosting company and looked good, but I was unaware of the pitfalls until I realised my rankings had fallen.

Thanks for your input.

 

[johnphilip2880]

Flash is in many ways detrimental to SEO. Some of the reasons include:
1.Load time.
Flash based sites tend to take more time for loading.
2.Flaws in Security
Security reasons are also one of the reasons to consider flash as detrimental.
It is always advisable to redesign the website and bring up to date if you are using flash.