OK, so it’s not breaking news. But, for all the confusion about flash on real estate websites, this may come as news to you. If you’re in a hurry, here’s the bottom line:
You can use flash elements on a website without hurting your chances for being ranked by the search engines!
But, don’t leave too soon, because the biggest problem I see surrounding the discussion on this topic is that no two people define flash-related terms in the same way. This results in a lot of discussion with no consensus because everyone is comparing apples and oranges. So, for the purposes of this post, here’s a short dictionary of flash terms.
Short Dictionary of Flash Terms
Flash – Flash is being defined as a type of a file that contains images and actions. The search engines cannot read flash files.
Flash Website – There are designers who are actually designing flash websites. That means that the entire website is displayed on the Internet as a number of giant flash files.
Flash Headers – Flash headers are being defined as a discrete flash file used on an HTML-based website to create a slide-show effectat the top of the website’s pages. Sometimes, a discrete flash file is used in the body of an HTML website, but for the sake of simplicity, I’ll stick with the term Flash Headers to encompass all those types of flash files.
Flash Dos and Don’ts
DO
- Use a flash header on an HTML-based website if you want to. Some considerations are: load speed, if you like the look or think it’s a distraction, etc.
DON’T
- Use Flash Websites – ESPECIALLY
- Use “splash” pages, meaning that the home page of your website is a pretty thing full of changing images and links into the website embedded in the flash. This is certain death for any SEO aspirations you have.
- Use flash menus. A flash menu may have pretty effects going on when you cursor over the tabs, etc. But, since the search engines can’t read flash, they will have no links to follow to get to other pages on your website. ALWAYS use search engine readable code for menus.
And, that’s about it for the Dos and Don’ts. It, like most of the rest of SEO, is not rocket science. If you’re wondering if I’m crazy, check out the Search Engine Ranking factors on SEOMoz. That ranking is done by SEOMoz by compiling opinions of about 70 SEO experts from all over. They rank the use of Flash Headers as having very minimal importance to search engine success.
So, please, let’s get together on this one!
