I can see both sides of the story and have developed Flash for the past several years off and on. I tend to try and steer my clients away from Flash except for non-essential elements...and even then I try and convince them it's just not worth it especially with mobile devices not supporting it. Then I reach for my iPhone and show them what I mean.

The argument that Taylor puts forth with regards to not having separate pages, or sub-links, is definitely the one issue I would have from a usability stand point. Picture this: You're searching for a TV program (they use Flash all the time) and you find in Google exactly what you're looking for; click the link and...you're brought to the home page of the station broadcasting it. Now you need to dig through the site to find that exact page you were looking for. Oh, and heaven forbid you hit the back button in your browser.

Now as of Flash 5 (I think) there are ways to deal with the back button issue inserting little bookmarklets (I can't recall the specific terminology) so that the user can still go forward/back like normal. The issue is that most developers don't know about it or use it.

But I digress, this is about search. Great that it's indexed, but like Taylor said, it's ranking that matters. It's still a step in the right direction. I'm confident though that most that can be done with Flash can be done with JavaScript (opening another can of worms here) or just isn't even required. It comes down to the developer sitting with the client AND SEO when in the design phase...not after the site is up.

There have been ways to make a Flash website search-friendly for years. The problem: they're frigging expensive (because they take time).

There are plenty of reasons not to build your website in Flash - and not all of them are SEO-related. I've never been a fan of animating something just "because you can." It's something like dropping animated GIFs all of your page because, "hey look, moving pictures!" Flash shouldn't be a novelty. It should be a utility.

That said, Flash can still make for awesome user experiences - and those have a great deal to do with creating sharable (and linkable) websites. But use it where it makes sense.

While I'm biased against closed, proprietary solutions, I don't think Flash was born good or born evil. It's a tool, and sometimes it's the best one. In practice, however, it's still so often misused.

More often than not, the decision to use flash is a design choice. While Flash has evolved dramatically as a platform (for example, the Flex IDE), most sites use Flash like it's the year 2000; that's the year the first Flash API came out and developers were able to pull in external data (i.e. XML) to feed data through flash wrapper. The problem is that websites still create these one-off flash apps. The data often isn't centralized or standardized. If it was, sites would be able to create several presentation outputs for the same data: PDFs, HTML, XML, and yes... Flash. Data is opening up across formats, platforms, and devices, why would anyone want to start with a final output that is so inflexible? Every decision to use flash is ultimately an architectural decision that affects the website, syndication, mobile platforms, and search.

OK, so this is a post about SEO. I agree that engines have made huge strides in indexing flash and can only imagine how hard it is to break apart the binaries and get any useful information out of them. It's a major step that they can finally index SWFObject, since this is a ubiquitous way of inserting flash on a website. As Marshall and Taylor point out, it's about ranking. I know the engines can read text embedded in flash layers, what about pass-through data like JSON or XML (such as I reference above). Ultimately though, search is text-based. Engines need words, and they prefer a markup structure. One benefit of Flash is that you don't need to have one. Of course, that's an inherent liability as well.

Am I the only one who finds Brian's comment quite amusing:

"By applying SEO best practices, your Flash content is no longer invisible to search engines. You can finally have your Flash and find it, too."

When a quick search for the opening sentence for the "Who We Are" section of the flash header on this very page, shows no nfusion.com results: http://tr.im/FiFr

Just my 2p (we don't have c in the UK ;-) )

Andy

It's no surprise that I am anti-flash, given that I've been pretty vocal about it for years.

I just don't understand why anyone thinks they need to have a site built entirely in flash. Forget search engines for a minute - what about usability?

Flash has it's place, but it should never ever be used to replace important content or navigation unless you're specifically trying to hide it from the search engines.

Over on Sphinn Nick Wilsdon makes a great point. Last week at PubCon Matt Cutts announced that page load time is becoming a more important ranking factor. Flash certainly impacts this aspect of SEO as well.

What I took away from Brian's portion of the article is that Flash is no longer the Great Unsearchable Wall that it once was. The first step was taken in making Flash searchable, and it can only get better. I think it should be seen as a positive experience for the web that this is moving forward.

Since others have thrown in their two cents about Flash, I will too. Not everything should be made with Flash, but not everything needs to be searchable either. Like Taylor says in his article, it all depends on what you're trying to accomplish with your site.

Ultimately, the concept and content of the site should determine what technology is used to build it. SEO is an important part of the process, but so is determining what kind of emotional engagement you want to have with your users. Depending on what the purpose of the site is, there are other driving factors that can lead users to it.

I don't see why Flash becoming more searchable should be greeted with negativity for the platform. It's not fully there yet, but it's exciting that the problem is being worked on.

All this talk about SEO is, with respect, bollocks. Not everybody will use a search engine. Any major advertising campaign will use a mix of communication channels and you can guarantee that a search engine won't be one of them.
A good Flash site will be backed up with heavy promotion of the site name in all forms of media - TV, radio, print. The fact that it eventually achieves a high page ranking has nothing to do with employing effective SEO techniques but everything to do with the effectiveness of the advertising campaign.

When you have a tried and tested brand, SEO becomes immaterial. When Guinness want to run an internet promotion they will inevitably use Flash for the site, because a) it's what their online audience expect and b) it allows them to showcase their products in ways that would be impossible using other online technologies. They will then promote the site heavily through their retail outlets and the use of prominent signage on their products. Substitute Guinness with any of the top 5000 brands and the approach will be the same.

A case in point. The Volvo Cars tie-in with Pirates of the Caribbean was a hugely successful advertising campaign. Yet the site was 100% Flash with no indexing. If it hadn't had been made in Flash it's unlikely it would've had the impact it did around the world. It didn't achieve this level of success because it used cutting-edge SEO techniques - it achieved it entirely on the back of an extremely well thought-out communication plan that focused on TV, cinema, and radio; backed up by effective promotion of the site URL through their international car showrooms. Any search engine rankings, for Volvo or the competition site, were gained entirely by this communication plan; the entertainment value of the Flash puzzles; and subsequent word-of-mouth recommendations in forums world-wide. It had absolutely nothing to do Search Engine Optimisation.

So how does your multi-spend advertising campaign and subsequent flash site effect people with disabilities that have also heard through other media channels and predominently rely upon search engines to firstly serve the brand they were looking for and secondly to make the same information available through areadable format or through text to speech browsers?

Sounds like mr. anonymous has been hiding under a rock for the past 5 years. Put away your floppy disk and get with it man!

I almost don't want to bother responding to anonymous' comment so I'll simply ask how many people/companies have the budget to do "heavy promotion of the site name in all forms of media"?

Not many.

And, even the companies that DO have the budget use SEO to attract a different set of visitors because it's a hell of a lot cheaper than traditional ad buys.

Get a clue and put a name to your stupidity next time.

No surprise to see that it's the Flash-haters who responded so vociferously to this thread. What's already apparent is that none of you have the slightest clue about advertising expenditure or how to run a multi-strand campaign. despite your claims to be advertising professionals. Placing an advert in local newspapers is small beer - usually a fraction of the cost of creating the website in the first place. In many instances you can get product placement for free in various media channels with the use of well-written and imaginative press releases. Does the 'Best Job In The World' campaign ring any bells with you people?

Radio is also cheap while TV is far less expensive than you might imagine. And, apart from a few minor design costs, it costs very little to promote a site on your own merchandising.

I'll respond to Mr Pratt as he appears to be the only one prepared to enter this debate with an open mind...yes, I was primarily talking about established brands. But even non-established brands would be foolish to rely entirely upon the internet for their promotional activity. And SEO has its natural limitations. At some point two identical products/services, offered by different traders, can be SEO'd up to the neck so that both appear on page one of Google. What then? Your optimisation has gone as far as it can go so the only way they can continue to maximise their brand is to revert back to the tried and tested methods of advertising; the ones that consistently attract new customers and, more importantly, new revenue.

SEO is no different from Flash in that both are simply tools to promote a website's "footfall". But, in my view, SEO is limited to one small area - search engine ranking. Whereas Flash, when used properly, encourages people to remain on a website for longer and to explore more of it. To use a simple analogy - the website is a supermarket. SEO is only the map highlighting the location of the store, but Flash represents the inside of the store; the products, the bright lighting, the strategic placing of high-profit items in prominent areas, the free tasting of products, the whole customer/employee relationship.

I won't bother responding to the tired old arguments about accessibility. Yes, sites should be accessible, within reason. Would you insist that all road-signs should be written in braille so that we can accommodate blind drivers? I think not.

Anyway, the entire debate is irrelevant to me. I'll still be paid the bigger bucks to produce Flash sites ;)