Before now, one of the major arguing points of Flash haters (as well as more reasonable people, such as myself) has been the fact that text in Flash is not indexable by search engines.
In English, this means that Google doesn’t understand any of the words on a Flash website, unless they’re also in normal text (HTML) as well. This made it difficult for Flash sites to do well in search results, and was a good reason for lower budget organizations (ones that can’t afford to make both a Flash and non-Flash version of their site) to consider skipping Flash altogether.
No more.
As of today, Google has developed a new algorithm that will allow their search bot to go into Flash pages and understand the text. Flash sites will no longer be hindered in search results; Flash text, just like the text on HTML sites, will become relevant searchable information.
In no way does this solve all of Flash’s problems. Flash still responds badly to the Back button, is unavailable on about 10% of internet devices (Adobe would claim just 2%, but they’re ignoring many devices and markets, notably the iPhone and China), is shaky on Linux, and more. But it is one large argument gone (probably equivalent to the size of the age argument against John McCain), and should open up opportunities for new Flash content (both good and bad) all over the web.
4 Comments
I think that generally, so called “flash haters” are people that understand when it is beneficial to use it, and when it’s not. Personally, I don’t think text content should be inside a flash movie if it can be helped, but no matter we’ll let the flash fan boys jump for joy for now. They still have that massive semantics hurdle to jump.
Definitely agree Paul. Many “Flash Haters” are good intentioned, and know exactly what they’re talking about. I for one think Flash is way overused, and should not be used as the main navigation for a normal site (restaurants, movie studios, etc.).
However, I think there are many places where it is extremely useful (web applications that would be more usable with Flash than AJAX like Buzzword, graphic designer sites, etc.), and those sites often get unfair criticism even though they’re using it in a useful way, rather than overkill. Sites like this now have one more reason to use Flash.
I’m far from a Flash “fan boy” (I’ve barely used it, in fact). I’m just happy to see the platform get better support.
‘This made it difficult for Flash sites to do well in search results, and was a good reason for lower budget organizations (ones that can’t afford to make both a Flash and non-Flash version of their site) to consider skipping Flash altogether.
No more.’
BZzzzzzt! Wrong.
Still don’t do this. Flash is not an open standard and ONLY works with search engines that have contracted with Adobe to use their proprietary format with their search engines.
Flash remains a non open standard, opaque part of the web that trades glitz for good old fashion standards, interoperability, and usability.
Flash should only be used in cases where it’s feature set is the only way to do something useful, used sparingly even then, and there should always be an HTML non-flash version available alongside the Flash component.
While I agree that it would be nice if Flash were an open standard, I recognize that it is silly to avoid using something because it’s not open.
While you stress the bad sides of Flash, you ignore the good ones. Flash allows people to accomplish many things that are either impossible or very difficult (and therefore very expensive) with AJAX.
It would be nice if everyone provided a non-Flash version of their site, but not everyone has enough money to pay to develop/maintain both. Small/medium sites win with this development; they can now provide the functionality they want, without worrying about hurting on the search engines.