Digitalidad 0 Report post Posted February 17, 2009 Last year someone suggested we should re-design in Flash the website of the company I work for. I told her I wouldn't do it because Google doesn't index the text in your flash files online. I proved my point by making some searches of text found in websites made completely in Flash. Does Google already have the capability to index the text you put in your Flash movies? If not, what can you do to make your site Google friendly even if it was made with Flash?Thanks in advance for your comments! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Saint_Michael 3 Report post Posted February 28, 2009 Yes it is true that Google has never index any flash related test such as menus and content, however the few things you can Flash and not worry about is some menus, banners, flash games and what not. Just make sure you have some sort of text equivalent somewhere on your website since usually the only things most people flash are banners and maybe the menu under the banner. Of course, there is nothing wrong in designing 100% flash base website since your best shot is to have websites indirectly connect to your website in some fashion to give it some indexing power. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
salamangkero 0 Report post Posted February 28, 2009 I would suppose I have found evidence that Google does index text from flash sites. For example, a quick search of the term: "Let us explain. Kikko punch The power of the punch" returns, as its top result, a swf of the viral Fight! Kikkoman video, English version. As of the time of writing, a search without the quotes also returns the same site as its #3 result. (My apologies for the links, but I use Google Klingon Advanced Search) On the other hand, however, the search term "If this is an actual plea for help in response to a hazardous material spill" will not bring you to the Aperture Science website. A quick search on the filename of its swf file reveals that Google has cached only the text ">", which is a prompt where you can type help (and receive a message including the search terms) or login. I am rather inclined to say that Google caches only text that would appear without user-interaction, however, the Kikkoman swf requires the user to click START before coming unto the cached text. Perhaps, and I am merely hypothesizing here, Google caches only the text available to the viewer without user interaction EXCEPT a mouse click? To verify this, I tried a lyrics-based search for Shii's Song, another flash video, to see what text had been cached and it seems that, indeed, the lyrics had, indeed, been cached by Google. The same result has been observed on a lyrics-based search for the Llama Song. Then again, it might only be a rule that applies only to viral videos. I am quite sorry that, in my experiment, I know not much of other Flash-based pages Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
