Does flash hurt SEO?

[P. Michael Blair]

I went to http://www.cookevillewebdesigns.com and saw it is all flash. Does this hurt SEO?
http://www.blackhawkinteractive.com

[G. Whilikers]

It can, because search engines don't read Flash files. Do a "view source" on the web page, that's what the search engines see. In this case, they did put a paragraph with some keywords in the body of the page (hidden beneath the flash) so there's something there to index. But someone searching for a phrase only found in the Flash is going to come up empty.

[Terry R]

Flash is a problem for indexing a website when the entire website is built in flash or the flash image blocks the crawling of the website after the flash code in the html. Flash itself is not necessarily a bad element, just use it wisely and never make all of your navigation in flash.

[Mike S]

Flash doesn’t hurt your site for optimization but it can’t be read by search engine algorithms. However when looking at code to text ratio, too much flash could technically hurt your site’s SEO. Also, if most of the page is done in flash there is nothing to be read by the spiders. It has no real value other than to make your site “look” good. Don’t get me wrong, I like flash. Flash dose have its uses. But if your thinking about using flash on a business site, use very sparingly.

[Def Gecko]

Flash will not hurt your SEO, but none of it's content can be seen by the search engines. The more flash you have on your site, the more text and link content you will need to be properly indexed for you primary keyphrases.

If your site or homepage is primarily flash, then you should definitely fine tune your meta tags so that the SE's have something to go on.

If you hope to rank well consistently, which we all do, then you will need to have regular content on your webpages. The more the better. Quality backlinks can also help your sites, but will take longer to rank if this is your primary method, even then you still need at least SOME regular content.

Good luck!

Len Estrada
XeroTeam Marketing
http://www.JaguarMarketingRevealed.com

[mikesed]

Not hurt exactly but Flash can't be read by the search engines.

If you have Flash menu's then you could have a problem as the search engines can't follow the menus to the other pages. It's the same problem with JavaScript.

This Video explains it
http://www.kksmarts.com/lp/seo-java-script.asp

[Mik]

Yes, BUT YOU CAN OPTIMEZ YOUR SITE TO AVOID HURTING , TRY TO SEARCH AT GOOGLE YOU WILL FIND MANY WAYS TO OPTIMES YOUR FLASHY SITE.

Regards
http://newspapers11.wordpress.com/

[Drew H]

Flash could hurt the efforts for SEO. Because Search Engines rely so heavily on the 'usefulness of content' it is difficult for them to establish this when the actual content of a page cannot be read.

Sure you can add additional text onto a page where a flash file resides, however this sits outside the 'flash content', and you can optimize meta tags, but without capitalizing on 'usefulness of content' your website will not rank as well as it could.

Drew Howard
Interweb Marketing Group
http://www.searchenginetraffictoday.com

[Ĵ@§p€Я™]

Absolutely. Flash affects SEO. Google Search Engine cannot read flash texts. So, if you have text in a flash form, it is useless. Unlike if you just use plain text, it does not affect SEO. The content of your website increases website's ranking especially if the content is unique or original.

You can try this free SEO marketing site analysis. Just fill in the blanks needed and they will give you some advices especially in SEO.