With the rising popularity of RIAs and other Flash driven content, why
are there no clear policies regarding legitimate hidden content
printed behind a flash interface?

Many of our clients are wanting the benefit of rich dynamic content,
but are afraid to sacrifice indexability. As a solution, we
implemented a system where the content displayed in the Flex
application is printed in the background using a mixture of PHP
templating and Dynamic Deep Linking. Unfortunately, I just found out
that a client's site was recently dropped from the Google index as a
result (www.allchicorentals.com).

I am confused as to why this happened when a user can view all of the
content displayed top down using a text browser like Lynx, or they can
use the Flex interface to view the EXACT same content with interactive
features for filtering and sorting.

The fact that developers are being penalized for innovation worries
me. I understand the need to penalize spammers, but penalizing
legitimate sites who want to provide their users with a more
interactive experience only serves to stifle such an amazing
technology.

I refuse to accept that Google is unwilling/unable to move forward
with these new trends. I would like to humbly ask when we can move
forward with this concept, and what (if any) changes I should make
before resubmitting the site for reconsideration.

Sincerely,

--
Aaron Miller
Chief Technology Officer
Open Base Interactive, LLC.

You can certainly build a flash file which Google will index...

http://www.google.ca/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&r...

in fact... Google does index flash... but... due to the way flash
files are constructed it's not always easy to pull that information
back out of it's compressed format and rank it equally against a web
page... I could be wrong... it might be really easy to do... but if it
was... it probably would have been done by now...

To give you a fair example... have you ever downloaded a flash file
and then run a flash decoder on it to pull out all of the elements of
the flash binary... doesn't always work the way you would expect it to
does it?

For the most part... Google will index the text found in a flash
file... it's upto you as a developer to understand how to construct
your flash file so it is delivered over the web in a search engine
friendly way...

If your not happy with how flash is working for you... have you tried
the Vector language alternatives like SVG and VML... It's actually
what Google Maps is made out of... my best advice to your it to use
what flash is good for... animation and video delivery... that's it...
you don't need it for anything else... That's what flash was built
for... Animation... it's authoring tools aren't even that good if you
ask me... I was always a bigger fan of Macromedia's Director... it was
so much more straightforward...

Why not search for your content... if it shows up... your ranking for
it right?

And most of them are OLD.

Flash, along with JS, has been known as an issue with SEO for years.
It's also been common practice to ensure a NORMAL version is provided
behind it.

It's not new and it's not secret.
It's advised here at least once every 2 weeks.
It's mentioned in the Google Blog.
I believe it's mentioned at MCs.
I know it's mentioned in all the major WebDesign community sites out
there, and several tutorial sites as well.

.

You simply ensure that what ever your flash content containes, you
provide equivelent pages of.
It reall is that simple.
Then put the Flash OnTop of the main file.
Done.

Alternatively
Break the flash up into 'pages' and link between them ...
 and stack them OnTop of the relevant pages.
Done.

Alternatively
Build indexable Flash content to begin with

OR

Don't build fully flash based sites, build normal sites that are
'improved' with additional Flash content/features (which are stack
ontop of the normal version of that content/feature).

.

Sorry if that all sounds/reads as narky... but it kind of is.
There is no Big Secret to this.

Best Regards,
~Aaron

On Jun 17, 5:14 am, Autocrat wrote:

If you think a site has been removed from the index because of the way
they had done things, you should do your best to make sure that it's
in compliance with the principles laid out in the article referenced
above and then file a Reconsideration Request through the Google
Webmaster Tools console that includes a few details on any changes
you've made to bring the site into compliance (or explain that you
believe it was in compliance and removed in error).  Good luck!

On Jun 17, 2:16 pm, drkstr wrote:

Google doesn't penalise you for it!

Google penalises you for spammy content.
Google penalises you for stuffing content.
Google penalises you providing 2 distinctly different sets of content.
Google may give you naff all if the 'normal' content is non-existant
or is next to useless.

Sorry you do not like the answers so far - but all have been
informative and to my view/experience, correct.

.

And no, that wasn't your question.

" Clear guidelines for legit "hidden" flash content "
And it got answered.

Upon your recomendation, the client resubmitted it stating that it
was
removed in error and it looks like Google was ok with this since it's
back in the index now. Although, the once semi-high Page Rank is now
starting over. Oh well, you win some you loose some.

Thanks again!
~Aaron

On Jun 17, 12:25 pm, RainboRick wrote:

Let's face it, it's difficult to provide clear policies about anything
hidden so, let's start out with a few W3C "policies" that are clear.

1) Alternative text is produced by ALT "tags" and not content in a
hidden div.

2) #anchors refer to the same page in standard HTML and for that
reason Google ignores them when they appear in URLs, like yours for
example.

Google sees:
http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:http://www.allchicorentals.com/l...

Users see:
http://www.allchicorentals.com/listings#/

Differences:

Google sees a few things users don't:
- hidden text "Chico rental house for rent all rentals home for lease
property management and managers renting leasing rental property,
Chico State, Bidwell, downtown Chico............."  (seems kind of
spammy to me)

- hidden link passing PageRank and with the following anchor text
"Custom Software Development and Technology Consulting for the Greater
Northwest: Whatcom, Skagit, and King county, Seattle, Mount Vernon, &
Bellingham" (seems kind of spammy to me)

- "about us" page linking/passing PR to another domain with a popup!
(seems kind of spammy to me)

- At quick glance I can't find any contact information, privacy policy
and/or other. (seems like the site isn't concerned with users or their
ability to contact the site's owner)

Based on these signals, it's easy to see why the site was mistaken for
SPAM and that is the danger of using anything hidden.

Google suggests using sIFR for just that reason.

Hope that helps and best of luck to you!

Of course there also may be umpteen things wrong with the site.

http://oyoy.eu/page/headers/?full=1&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.allchicorent...

That shows your hoempega gets 301 redirected to the folder called /
listings
Then the flash redirects yet again to /listings#/ . This doesn't look
very good.

Then:

http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http://www.allchicorental...

This shows the page is quite broken, especially the head.
Without a doctype it is assumed the code is html 4.01 or similar. Yet
you are using xhtml syntax in the head. You have to fix it.

You also have a canonical domain problem where www and non www urls
coexist. you have to pick one form and use that consistently all
through the site (including in the flash redireciton) and 301 redirect
the "wrong" form to the correct form for all urls.

http://groups.google.com/group/only-validation/web/fix-canonical-issu...

you will need to pick an chose what you want to use from there sicne
you already have a strange setup (/listings doesnt' resutl in a server
301 redirection to /listings/ as would be normal, so maybe you are
using mod_rewrite to suppress that or maybe the server si set up that
way).

On Jun 18, 5:48 pm, drkstr wrote:

I noticed this site is beta and hope you'll address these issues prior
to launch.  The site looks great by the way, it just needs some
technical and user enhancements in my opinion.

Either way, I think resolving these issues could produce great rewards
not to mention it being a great example of "Best Practices for
Flash".

Not sure what purpose the flash serves.
It's nto long enough to be for decoration or a 'flashy" intro, and
even with js off the flash still loads.

On Jun 18, 8:43 pm, beussery wrote:

Try running what Google sees:
http://www.allchicorentals.com/listings
on
http://tool.motoricerca.info/spam-detector/

wow

The way a script like swfobject is supposed to work is when js is off
you see the html content the flash would otherwise have covered up,
and not the flash.

This one doesn't use swfobject, but a similar script, only brougth
about to get rid of the click to activate in IE actually.

However the noscript portion still presents a flash object.  The robot
doesn't need flash (or read it unless the flash has text content
that's readable).

On Jun 18, 9:29 pm, beussery wrote:

Google sees:
$1150/mo. 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1036sq. ft., 12 Month lease, $500
deposit
Move in by August 1st receive a $300 Best Buy Gift Card and pay NO
application fee! Timber Creek Apartments are set next to the beautiful
campus of Chico State University. The location is convenient; walk to
campus as well as to unique shops, galleries, restaurants, and varied
entertainment venues in Chico's quaint downtown. Spacious apartment
homes are designed to meet your needs and provide a comfortable living
environment.
http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:http://www.allchicorentals.com/l...

User sees:
$1150, (the address not included above), house 4 beds, 2 baths and
symbols.
http://www.allchicorentals.com/listings#/

On Jun 19, 6:19 am, Autocrat wrote:

This thread has gone places since yesterday morning, and everyone's
asking different questions, so here's a sadly long attempt to clear up
as much confusion as possible.  I've divided this in sections
addressed to the person who raised each issue.  As always, if
something I say in here doesn't make sense, please feel free to ask
more questions... that's why the group is here.

Aaron (drkstr):
First off, this site is VERY slick.  Although I'm not sure why it
needs to be in Flash, I really do appreciate the interface design.
It's intuitive and informative without being cluttered.  However, the
plain-old-HTML version of the page doesn't really present the same
information--where are the cute Amenities icons?  The ability to sort
by number of beds and bathrooms?  The ability to log in and save
listings?

Using Flash is not in itself a violation of the Webmaster Guidelines,
and we do not penalize sites simply for using Flash.  Your site is in
our index, and as you noted, it shows up when doing a site: search.  I
haven't been able to investigate its absense, since I didn't get a
chance to look at the site until after you saw it in the SERPS again,
but I'm putting my money with webado on the datacenter propagation
theory.

Regardless, I know that the tendency to build sites around Flash isn't
a new trend, and we both understand that Flash is very different from
HTML; HTML was designed to describe static text and images, whereas
Flash was designed to describe vector-based graphics with interactive
multimedia content.  However, keyword indexation, the process that
lets search engines be so darn fast, only makes sense for textual
content.  Without real eyes and a brain, it can be rather difficult to
tell what's going on in an interactive, graphically based medium and
attach words to that.  We're currently tackling this conundrum, and
we're getting better at it day by day.

In the mean time, it's also helpful to remember that users using Lynx
or iPhone Safari or screen readers cannot view your flash content
either.  It's a very good idea to not limit your audience by requiring
software that they may not have access to.  Make sure people browsing
on the more unusual browsers have access to the exact same kinds of
content that your Flash-enabled users do.  It will give our crawlers
and our indexing algorithms more information to go on.

MrGamma:
His site is indexed, but he's not linking to much, since all his
listings in the HTML version are #anchors that don't go anywhere and
there's no additional information to go on about those listings.  We
don't have a lot to go on, but the site is indexed:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aallchicorentals.com%2F

Autocrat:
Your noting that the posts on Flash are all OLD reminds me how long
I've been trolling these forums.  Big thanks to everyone for keeping
it lively.  The best option is still "Only use Flash for things that
need to be in Flash"--the design philosophy behind such well indexed
sites as YouTube.

RainboRick:
Thanks for the shout out to the blog post and to the Reconsideration
Request form.  Very courteous of you.  As I've said before, if you
believe your site has been dropped from the index, you should always
do the following three things:
1. Reread the webmaster guidelines
2. Fix your site (if necessary)
3. File a Reconsideration Request (if you fixed something)

webado:
I still don't understand how you seem to be everywhere at once.
Thanks for stopping by this thread though. :-)

Disabling Javascript doesn't work because, as you note, he's not using
SWFObject.  However, disabling CSS (with, for example, the Web
Developer Toolbar for FireFox) should make it more clear how his site
does what it does.

In your analysis of the strange directory structure, you also raise a
good point about the anchors in his URLs.  As I noted in the MrGamma
section above, this isn't ideal.  Perhaps if the listings had their
own page in the same way that they do in the Flash version, there
would be a point to their titles being links, but with no javascript
or CSS, the page looks like a bunch of anchor links that don't go
anywhere.

Also, while perusing the HTML, I noticed that the listings page has
more than one DIV with the same id ("hidden") which isn't standard.

beussery:
The listings are different.  The boilerplate for listings of home
features is missing from the nonflash version and some of the text in
the HTML version isn't in the Flash.  I agree with you that this is
not a best use of Flash.  In this case, it's tough to speak as to
whether it's a violation of the Webmaster Guidelines, because although
the Flash / no-Flash experiences are similar, the differences appear
to be the result of a work-in-progress or unfinished design rather
than some kind of black hat effort.  I don't see an overt intent to
deceive search engines.  However, it's clear that non-Flash-enabled
visitors have a very different experiences at the site, and that's not
a good thing.  This is the reason why I suggest avoiding SWFObject and
other similar techniques--since the two versions of the page are
separate, they are not necessarily the same, which is bad for visitors
and bad for search engines.

Thus, my overall take is that the functionality of the Flash version
of the site is pretty slick, and it's a shame that this functionality
isn't available to all the site's visitors.  The HTML version lacks
much of the functionality that makes the Flash site useful, and it
doesn't give the same information about the properties--including
their locations.  It would probably benefit both search engine robots
and other non-Flash visitors to the site if the HTML version underwent
a tune-up to make the two experiences more similar.

I hope that clears up some issues.  Everybody should feel free to ask
for clarification or make fun of any typos I've left in this rambling
monologue.  Thanks for calling me out and taking over most of my
morning with such an interesting case, Beussery.  I hope you're taking
some time to enjoy the warm weather all the way out there in Georgia.

-Bergy

It's really difficult to discern malicious intent not having all of
data and wonderful secret Googler tools on this end. : )  Didn't think
it was the case here but, the more I looked the more I could see how
it may be interpreted as such.  With large sites like this issues
always seem to multiply quickly.

Again thanks for the insight and dropping by!

On Jun 19, 2:41 pm, Berghausen wrote: