Flash CS3 + SWFObject (Deep-linking / flashVars)

[Ambrose]

I'm trying to link directly from a html page with five different links
that target five different Named Anchors in my swf file. how do i go
about this using SWFObject 2?

thanks heaps!

[Ambrose]

anyone? (the links are on different html pages that link back to the
main swf housed in all)

[Zokdok]

Maybe you are looking for SWFAddress? It can handle deeplinks as well
(and provides support for the backbutton of the browser).
But the anchors should be named something else, but there is a lot of
information to be found in the documentation and examples.

http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/

[beussery]

Ambrose,

Something to keep in mind when it comes to URLs with #anchors!

Googlebot ignores #anchors in URLs and as a result associates inbound
links, link juice (PageRank) as well as link anchor text keyword
relevancy with the URL prior to it's #anchor.

This is an important factor to consider when it comes to your site's
ability to rank in search engine results pages. (Yes I'm aware of the
non-#anchor version URL in the SWFObject layer but that is not the URL
version most users will use as a link to your content.) As you can
see in the example links below, Google's cache of the SWFAddress 2.0
"SEO Sample" portfolio 2 page is not the correct page.

http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/#/portfolio/2/?desc=true

http://209.85.135.104/search?sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.asual.com%2Fswfaddress%2Fsamples%2Fseo%2F%23%2Fportfolio%2F2%2F%3Fdesc%3Dtrue

Best of luck to you!

-Brian

[Rostislav Hristov]

Ambrose,

SWFAddress 2 can automatically bind to your SWFObject 2 instances, so
that you can produce deep links.
You should be able to setup the same functionality with any other url/
history manager.

> As you can see in the example links below, Google's cache of the SWFAddress 2.0
> "SEO Sample" portfolio 2 page is not the correct page.

Brian,

the page is absolutely correct. It seems that you still cannot
understand that
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/portfolio/2/?desc=true
exists, but if the client supports JavaScript it's automatically
rewritten to
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/#/portfolio/2/?desc=true

Try the sample with Flash or JavaScript disabled and stop with this
FUD.


Best,
Rostislav

[beussery]

> the page is absolutely correct. It seems that you still cannot

> understand thathttp://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/portfolio/2/?desc=true

> exists, but if the client supports JavaScript it's automatically
> rewritten tohttp://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/#/portfolio/2/?desc=true

Rostislav,

I understand fully and have 9 years of high-end expertise in this
area.


-------------------------------
Scenario:

1. I'm a user with a client that supports JavaScript as well as Flash.

2. I decide to link to the "SEO sample portfolio page 2" from my blog
because I really like the photo.

3. I cut the URL from my address bar.

4. The URL I cut is: http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/#/portfolio/2/?desc=true

5. I paste that exact URL in my blog and create an href link using the
anchor text "cool photo".

6. Googlebot crawls my blog and finds the link.

7. Instead of seeing the content I've actually linked to which is a
photo with almost no text, Googlebot sees:
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/%23/portfolio/2/%3Fdesc%3Dtrue&hl=en&strip=1
------------------------


+ Issue 1:
If users don't see the same text content as seen by Googlebot, it
could be said that a site is returning different content to users than
search engines.

User's view: http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/#/portfolio/2/?desc=true
Googlebot's view:
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/%23/portfolio/2/%3Fdesc%3Dtrue&hl=en&strip=1


"Cloaking

Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or
URLs to users and search engines. Serving up different results based
on user agent may cause your site to be perceived as deceptive and
removed from the Google index.

Some examples of cloaking include:

* Serving a page of HTML text to search engines, while showing a
page of images or Flash to users.
* Serving different content to search engines than to users."

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66355


+ Issue 2:
PageRank and relevancy credit, if you will that belong to:
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/portfolio/2/?desc=true
are actually going to:
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/


I understand the #anchor advances the playhead in the Flash file but
Googlebot ignores everything in the URL starting at the #anchor
because in traditional html the page is the same.

[Rostislav Hristov]

Brian,

> Scenario:

The case is valid. Deep links with anchors published on other sites
will tell Google to index the start page.
If you want people to link to the site properly you should offer them
other mechanisms to do so ("Link to this page" button, Permalink, RSS,
etc).

It's good for the PR to have other sites linking to your deep links,
but for pure search engine indexing you can still rely on proper links
in your own HTML.
The Sitemaps protocol gives you another ability to tell the search
engine which are the valid URLs.
Somehow I have achieved PR5 for a deep link like
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/contact/

> + Issue 1:

There was a cloaking issue with SWFAddress 1.1 and with version 2 this
has been greatly improved.
As you say Google won't follow links with anchors and the samples you
give are just not valid.
How can we violate any rules that just don't apply in this context?

The main issue with the cloaking was the redirection from
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/portfolio/2/?desc=true to
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/#/portfolio/2/?desc=true

The new SWFAddress mechanism ensures that after the redirect the HTML
content is the same. The redirect itself is tricky and Google probably
won't be able to detect it, but even if it does it will see exactly
the same content.

> + Issue 2:

You can check the SWFAddress Ajax sample which uses exactly the same
technique with different medium:

http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/ajax/ - PR5
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/ajax/history/ - PR4
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/ajax/technologies/?param1=value1
- PR0
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/ajax/justification/?param1=value1&param2=value2
- PR4

As you see the PR can vary depending on the deep link. All these pages
are real for both the users and the search engines. Rich web
technologies just enhance them with additional capabilities like
refresh-less browsing.

Overall I don't say that everything is perfect, but the capabilities
offered by SWFAddress are probably the best offering at the moment for
this type of work. The web wasn't initially designed for such rich
clients and there are no known developments by the big industry
players on this topic. Don't judge us because we want to ease the life
of the ordinary people.


Best,
Rostislav

[beussery]

> The case is valid. Deep links with anchors published on other sites
> will tell Google to index the start page.
> If you want people to link to the site properly you should offer them
> other mechanisms to do so ("Link to this page" button, Permalink, RSS,
> etc).

How is requiring an extra step good for users? How will "ordinary
people" know to link using a button, permalink, RSS or other?

> It's good for the PR to have other sites linking to your deep links,
> but for pure search engine indexing you can still rely on proper links
> in your own HTML.
> The Sitemaps protocol gives you another ability to tell the search
> engine which are the valid URLs.
> Somehow I have achieved PR5 for a deep link likehttp://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/contact/

Yes, but this is not the address seen by users in their address bar.

>
> > + Issue 1:
>
> There was a cloaking issue with SWFAddress 1.1 and with version 2 this
> has been greatly improved.
> As you say Google won't follow links with anchors and the samples you
> give are just not valid.

It's not me saying that Google ignores #anchors, it's Google.
http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/msg/b22f66ab527a069a

> How can we violate any rules that just don't apply in this context?
>
> The main issue with the cloaking was the redirection fromhttp://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/portfolio/2/?desc=truetohttp://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/#/portfolio/2/?desc=true

As you said, user agents with javascript and Flash never see:
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/portfolio/2/?desc=true
and as a result they link to:
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/#/portfolio/2/?desc=true
which Googlebot sees as:
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/


Therein lays a potential violation, user sees a different page than
search engine. In addition PR will be misdirected and keyword
relevancy goes to the wrong page.

> The new SWFAddress mechanism ensures that after the redirect the HTML
> content is the same.

POINT: Users should always see the same content as the search engine.
Spammers have used tricky redirects for years. How does Google know
you are not a spammer?

The redirect itself is tricky and Google probably
> won't be able to detect it, but even if it does it will see exactly
> the same content.

POINT: If a user links to the #anchor version of the URL there is no
redirect and Googlebot sees content different from that of the user
because it ignores #anchors in URLs.

> > + Issue 2:
>
> You can check the SWFAddress Ajax sample which uses exactly the same
> technique with different medium:
>
> http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/ajax/- PR5http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/ajax/history/- PR4http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/ajax/technologies/?param1=value1

> - PR0http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/ajax/justification/?param1=va...
> - PR4

PageRank does not equal ranking in search engine results.

Again, as you said users with Flash and JavaScript never see these
URLs in their address bar making these URLs nearly impossible to link
to and making optimization for keywords in search result pages very
difficult.

> As you see the PR can vary depending on the deep link. All these pages
> are real for both the users and the search engines.

Unique pages with #anchors are not real to search engines because in
HTML the point to the same page. If pages with anchors were real to
search engines you would see them indexed and that is not the case.

> Overall I don't say that everything is perfect, but the capabilities
> offered by SWFAddress are probably the best offering at the moment for
> this type of work.

It comes across as though you are saying that using Flash, SWFObject
and/or SWFAddress are no different than using HTML and XHTML, again
not the case.

>The web wasn't initially designed for such rich
> clients and there are no known developments by the big industry
> players on this topic.

Believe me, I'm quite aware of this issue! Square peg, round hole.

>Don't judge us because we want to ease the life
> of the ordinary people.

I'm not judging anyone I'm simply stating the facts!

I commend your efforts but disapprove of misrepresentation.

[Rostislav Hristov]

> How is requiring an extra step good for users? How will "ordinary
> people" know to link using a button, permalink, RSS or other?

The benefit of the user is that specific deep section is linkable.
Proper linking to someone's site doesn't improve user's experience.
What is good for you (SEO linking) is not that important for the end user.

> Yes, but this is not the address seen by users in their address bar.

Users with rich client enabled browsers will see one address, the rest
including the bots will see another.
There are not many options here since this is a limitation of the
current browsers and rich web technologies.

> It's not me saying that Google ignores #anchors, it's Google.
> http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/msg/b22f66ab527a069a

It's not Google, anchors are client side thing and they cannot be
accesses server side.

> As you said, user agents with javascript and Flash never see:
> http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/portfolio/2/?desc=true
> and as a result they link to:
> http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/#/portfolio/2/?desc=true
> which Googlebot sees as:
> http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/

Again, if you're worried that people won't deep link to your site in a
SEO way then you should look for a better technique.
Unfortunately such one does not exist.

The goal of the project is allowing visibility of deep links for
search engines and this is currently possible.

> Therein lays a potential violation, user sees a different page than
> search engine. In addition PR will be misdirected and keyword
> relevancy goes to the wrong page.

The search engine capabilities are not adequate in the end of 2007.
This is why lots of developers are forced to make tricks and hacks to
achieve standard search indexing.
There many people doing bad SEO things on the Internet while they use
valid techniques.

> POINT: Users should always see the same content as the search engine.
> Spammers have used tricky redirects for years. How does Google know
> you are not a spammer?

The redirect that SWFAddress does is tricky, but non-sneaky. The
content after the redirect is exactly the same.
According to your point every Flash based site should be considered
spam. Google understands that this is not practical.

> POINT: If a user links to the #anchor version of the URL there is no
> redirect and Googlebot sees content different from that of the user
> because it ignores #anchors in URLs.

Yes, user links with anchors won't be indexed properly. SWFAddress
does not target such links.

> PageRank does not equal ranking in search engine results.
>
> Again, as you said users with Flash and JavaScript never see these
> URLs in their address bar making these URLs nearly impossible to link
> to and making optimization for keywords in search result pages very
> difficult.

Again, the solution offered provides indexable HTML alternative for
Flash and Ajax websites.
This HTML version can be spidered and each link can be accessed by bots.
The Sitemap protocol allows the submission of specific addresses to
the major engines.

User linking for improving SEO or PR might not work, but it's a fact
the samples that we showcase perform well on this topic.

> It comes across as though you are saying that using Flash, SWFObject
> and/or SWFAddress are no different than using HTML and XHTML, again
> not the case.

SWFAddress enhances Flash and SWFObject sites with deep linking.
It also showcases how plain indexable X/HTML replacement can be
provided for such deep links.

> I'm not judging anyone I'm simply stating the facts!
>
> I commend your efforts but disapprove of misrepresentation.

I see your point, but I also see negativism and loud titles.
Do you have better ideas or solution for our current needs?

[beussery]

>What is good for you (SEO linking) is not that important for the end user.

If that is true users don't use search engines to find websites?

>It's not Google, anchors are client side thing and they cannot be
accesses server side.

Client side, server side makes no difference, we are talking about the
URL. Google ignores #anchors in URLs.


I don't mean to sound negative but you set the tone with:

>the page is absolutely correct. It seems that you still cannot
>understand that
>http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/portfolio/2/?desc=true
>exists, but if the client supports JavaScript it's automatically
>rewritten to
>http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/#/portfolio/2/?desc=true

My "points" above were for emphasis not volume.

My irritation is the result of sites like http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/
claiming their solution "enables a number of important capabilities"
like "finding specific content with the major search engines" when
obviously it doesn't.

In answer to your question about a better solution, you are totally
correct. Currently there is no solution to "optimize" Flash the way
HTML can be optimized. iSFR may be the best approach for Flash that I
have seen so far but even it has issues. The best approach is to use
Flash like you would any other image and not as a site architecture,
so to speak. The best approach would be to make your site in HTML.
Google has classified SWFObject as being "dangerous". For that
reason, it is very important that content matches for users and
Googlebot 100% of the time. Also important you know how to go about
this and understand all the issues.

A solution is going to need to be made at the software level IE Adobe
Flash. Perhaps even a standardized way agreed to by search engines
for providing "alternative" content as technically "alternative
content" is only provided by "ALT tags" at least according to W3C.
Using hidden DIVs is hiding html and not optimizing Flash.

I'd like to find a solution too believe me so, if ever I may be of
assistance please feel free to reach out!

[Rostislav Hristov]

This discussion can be endless and at this point it's no longer constructive.
Also this forum is not the most appropriate place for it.

Thank you for the comments, some of them might be useful.

--
Asual - Open software that pushes the limits
http://www.asual.com/

[Bobby]

Re: Google has classified SWFObject as being "dangerous".

In my opinion this statement is untrue, because it is taken out of its
context, and evangelized as a fact by some people in the blogosphere.

It is my personal experience that in the past 2.5 years Google has
been very nice to both mechanisms as progressively enhanced Flash
content and alternative content embedded within the object tag. And it
doesn't make sense for them to just penalize these mechanisms: these
are nothing but enabling techniques that are generally regarded as
modern, good, and clean web authoring practices.

I believe that it is all about how you use these mechanisms: You can
use them and abuse them. If you are a good citizen and just duplicate
your textual content, add semantics, and maybe duplicate some imagery,
I am pretty sure that Google can interpret whether you are using the
mechanism to serve content to lo-tek devices and simple web crawlers
(it's not only about SEO, but also about serving web content to the
biggest target audience possible) or that you try to serve two
entirely different kinds of content, also regarded as cloaking. Just
like in real life: I can go to the shop to buy a crowbar, which is a
completely legal and handy instrument, and the police won't arrest me
when I use it to break down a cupboard in my own house, while they
will when they catch me in the act of trying to force open my
neighbor's back door.

I think that a big part of SEO is determined by the following 3
components:
- use web authoring good practices
- consider web master guidelines as published by search engine vendors
- do not try to beat the system with tricks (these will never be
future-proof and sometimes eventually work against you)


On Dec 14, 9:31 am, "Rostislav Hristov" <rostislav.hris...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> This discussion can be endless and at this point it's no longer constructive.
> Also this forum is not the most appropriate place for it.
>
> Thank you for the comments, some of them might be useful.
>

> On Dec 13, 2007 7:33 PM, beussery <beuss...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > >What is good for you (SEO linking) is not that important for the end user.
>
> > If that is true users don't use search engines to find websites?
>
> > >It's not Google, anchors are client side thing and they cannot be
> > accesses server side.
>
> > Client side, server side makes no difference, we are talking about the
> > URL. Google ignores #anchors in URLs.
>
> > I don't mean to sound negative but you set the tone with:
>
> > >the page is absolutely correct. It seems that you still cannot
> > >understand that
> > >http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/portfolio/2/?desc=true
> > >exists, but if the client supports JavaScript it's automatically
> > >rewritten to
> > >http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/samples/seo/#/portfolio/2/?desc=true
>
> > My "points" above were for emphasis not volume.
>

> > My irritation is the result of sites likehttp://www.asual.com/swfaddress/

[Geoff Stearns]

I just wanted to add a few things to this thread - I think there's been a number of good points brought up.

First of all, google doesn't mind when people use swfobject at all, and doesn't consider it any more dangerous than using something like sIFR or plain old css image replacement in your pages. It's all about how you use it, not the specific tools you use. If you abuse SWFObject, then yes, you could get your side blacklisted, but if you use it with good intentions then everything will be fine.

Everyone here should go read this post from a googler on the webmaster support team:

http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/msg/b22f66ab527a069a

He even talks about the anchors vs. non anchors and how that may affect page rank, and even brings up the 'link to this page' button again. While I agree with some of you that this isn't the best solution, you have to realize that this whole method of using page anchors is a fairly new thing.

On suggestion I heard internally was to add the anchors and the other page content to the alternate content on the homepage so if js is disabled, you will still get linked to the correct content. However, this method doesn't really scale well, so eventually i'd like to see some change in this area. This problem also affects Ajax/Javascript developers, so it might be smart to team up with some of those folks and have a nice little chat about it.


No about the page rank issue - while I do think it's a problem, I don't think it's a bug enough issue to keep you from using a tool like SWFAddress/StateManager/RSH, etc. etc. The benefit to the user I think will outweigh the loss in individual page rank, and at least the links are still being directed to your site, so you are still benefiting, it's just not as granular as it could be.

So if you REALLY rely in independent page rank, maybe using Flash/SWFAddress isn't the best thing for you to use. But for everyone else, I think it's very very useful.

[beussery]

Come on guys don't shoot the messenger and please get your facts
right! I posted here to help the original poster and I was correct
even if you don't want to hear what I have to say. You have the right
to make your site as you so choose, I'm only trying to help you have
better results. Honestly I have nothing to gain either way and was
only trying to share knowledge so as to help you and the poster.

> (it's not only about SEO, but also about serving web content to the
biggest target audience possible)

- Bobby did you know Flash supports 10 languages and Google supports
over 100? Google can't translate Flash or extract images or video.
Have you noticed Google's translation feature, Googe images or Google
video? Did you know that less than 10% of the world has access to
high-speed internet? Talk about limiting your target audience!

>or that you try to serve two entirely different kinds of content, also regarded as cloaking.

- How is serving HTML to search engines and Flash to users not two
different kinds of content? Instead of talking about the future one
should focus on the basics of today!

>alternative content embedded within the object tag

- Alternative content is delivered by ALT tags.

> First of all, google doesn't mind when people use swfobject at all, and
> doesn't consider it any more dangerous than using something like sIFR or
> plain old css image replacement in your pages.

- The comments hadn't been made public when Bergy made that post, you
might notice where he quotes me in the URL posted.

"Dan Crow from Crawl Systems who said that SWFobject was "dangerous"
http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_thread/thread/96683bd086a01675/29d339bbdfbef2df#29d339bbdfbef2df

Now Google also says that is not a reason not to use SWFObject but
recommends iSFR and not SWFObject they also suggest using Flash only
when necessary just as I said previously.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/07/best-uses-of-flash.html

> On suggestion I heard internally was to add the anchors and the other page...
- If you add anchors to the html there would be nothing to direct the
playhead in the Flash file. You would still have the same problem
because Google would still ignore the anchor in the URL unless you
included all of the html version of the site in one page in one page
of html. (see W3C) Doing so would still result in returning different
versions to users with flash and those without.

best of luck!

-beussery

[Geoff Stearns]

> (it's not only about SEO, but also about serving web content to the
biggest target audience possible)

- Bobby did you know Flash supports 10 languages and Google supports
over 100?  Google can't translate Flash or extract images or video.
Have you noticed Google's translation feature, Googe images or Google
video?  Did you know that less than 10% of the world has access to
high-speed internet?  Talk about limiting your target audience!

This isn't really about who can or can't see your content. There are plenty of legitimate uses for Flash.

Also: only the plugin specific things like "press esc to exit full screen" are only in 10 languages. You can put just about any language you want into a flash text field and have it show up. There are even 3rd party classes that let you display RTL languages.

Also flash doesn't require high bandwidth. It's perfectly possibly to create a very light weight flash app/website that isn't any larger an an HTML version with the same content.
 

>or that you try to serve two entirely different kinds of content, also regarded as cloaking.

- How is serving HTML to search engines and Flash to users not two
different kinds of content?  Instead of talking about the future one
should focus on the basics of today!

I believe he meant two different sets of textual content. When using swfobject with this method, you are generally serving the same CONTENT but with different style/behavior attached to it. Think of the swf as a Javascript+CSS file that is just altering the display of your content. It's not really any different on the surface than using some fancy Ajax to whizz your content around.
 

>alternative content embedded within the object tag

- Alternative content is delivered by ALT tags.

Object tags also support fallback content (sometimes called alternate content, but fallback content is probably more appropriate) - if the browser doesn't have the plugin to display the object tag, it tries to fall back to the content inside the object tag, which is why the nested object/embed tags work with Flash.

 

> First of all, google doesn't mind when people use swfobject at all, and
> doesn't consider it any more dangerous than using something like sIFR or
> plain old css image replacement in your pages.

- The comments hadn't been made public when Bergy made that post, you
might notice where he quotes me in the URL posted.

"Dan Crow from Crawl Systems who said that SWFobject was "dangerous"
http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_thread/thread/96683bd086a01675/29d339bbdfbef2df#29d339bbdfbef2df

Dan Crow's comments don't change the fact that using SWFObject in a legitimate way is perfectly fine. Anything that can hide text content is "dangerous" to use, and SWFObject is no different, but the fact remains that as long as you have good intentions and don't abuse it you will be fine.


 

Now Google also says that is not a reason not to use SWFObject but
recommends iSFR and not SWFObject they also suggest using Flash only
when necessary just as I said previously.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/07/best-uses-of-flash.html

You can't really use sIFR for the same kind of things you would use another swf for, but the concept is the same - you replace an html element with a Flash element and display the same content within that Flash element.
 

> On suggestion I heard internally was to add the anchors and the other page...
- If you add anchors to the html there would be nothing to direct the
playhead in the Flash file.  You would still have the same problem
because Google would still ignore the anchor in the URL unless you
included all of the html version of the site in one page in one page
of html. (see W3C) Doing so would still result in returning different
versions to users with flash and those without.

I meant add anchors AND keep all the swfaddress stuff intact. the main difference being that yes, all of your content would have to be on the same page, but it would work as intended if you linked to an anchor on the page with javascript disabled. But as I stated, that solution won't scale very well, and you'd have issue with your anchors (deep links) being crawled.

 

So to sum up: None of this really corrected anything in my last email. The fact still stands that using SWFObject is perfectly fine as long as you don't abuse it, just like any other web technology.

My comment from the original email still stands:

"Google doesn't mind when people use swfobject at all, and doesn't consider it any more dangerous than using something like sIFR or plain old css image replacement in your pages. It's all about how you use it, not the specific tools you use. If you abuse SWFObject, then yes, you could get your side blacklisted, but if you use it with good intentions then everything will be fine."

[Bobby]

When you purely focus on Flash and SEO, I think there are 2 good
reasons why to use Flash content plus semantically marked up
alternative HTML content over Flash content alone, even despite that
every search engine now must be able to abstract textual content from
a SWF (with the availability of the Adobe Flash search engine SDK:
http://www.adobe.com/licensing/developer/search/faq/ ):

1. Search engines have far more experience/history in crawling HTML
content than Flash content, so they are likely to be way better fine-
tuned on HTML content than on Flash content.

2. The abstracted textual content from a SWF is just flat content,
with not much of a structure. It lacks the semantics of HTML (even
though HTML semantics are quite limited) and the hierarchical
structure of an HTML document.

Now when you do use both Flash and alternative content, I think it is
best to duplicate the textual content from your SWF (like the search
engine SDK would do) and just add semantics and structure. There is no
cloaking here, it is - like Geoff said - just a different
representation of your textual content, and one that will help search
engines do their job in a better way.

Regarding the second point and looking at the future: now we are
slowly moving towards the semantic web, it will be interesting to see
how the engineers at Adobe will respond to this trend. If I would be
one of them, I would consider to include authoring options that will
enable Flash developers to add semantics to Flash content, and I would
update the search engine SDK to abstract this and to make this all
available to the Googles and Yahoos.

When you don't consider Flash and SEO, it still makes perfectly sense
to use Flash content plus semantically marked up alternative HTML
content over Flash content alone, because it will enable you to serve
alternative content to anybody who does not have the required Flash
plug-in installed, and in a lot of cases, everyone who doesn't have
the required JavaScript support (because of the preference of many
people to use dynamic Flash publishing, e.g. to avoid click-to-
activate mechanisms).

So to this target audience, it makes sense to add some imagery to the
earlier duplicated textual content (an example:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/progressive_enhancement_03.html
), purely to enrich the textual content and the message it should
convey and to improve the user experience.

> >http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_...

>
> Dan Crow's comments don't change the fact that using SWFObject in a
> legitimate way is perfectly fine. Anything that can hide text content is
> "dangerous" to use, and SWFObject is no different, but the fact remains that
> as long as you have good intentions and don't abuse it you will be fine.
>
>
>

> > <http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_...>

>
> > Now Google also says that is not a reason not to use SWFObject but
> > recommends iSFR and not SWFObject they also suggest using Flash only
> > when necessary just as I said previously.

> >http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/07/best-uses-of-flash...

[beussery]

Geoff, I'm not saying not to use Flash. I'm a designer and developer
and use Flash. I like Flash! What I am saying is that it's not a
good idea to create your entire site in one Flash movie at one URL.
Use Flash as you would other images but also use "static" content IE
navigation and include alternative jpg images in your "alternative"
content. If your Flash contains video include an alternative video in
mpg in your alternative content. There is a really easy solution to
all of this but, it would involve non-seamless page transitions which
I know just look bad and is frowned on by the Flash community.

SWFObject is in some ways dangerous because it could easily (seen it
happen) be detected as spamming unless you know exactly what you are
doing. The difference in iSFR is that it's intended to pull text in
html into Flash. SWFObject doesn't pull the "back" to the "front"
instead there are two different copies. The problem is that tactics
similar to SWFObject and others have been used by "Black Hat" SEOs to
spam search engines for years. Bottom line, you run the risk of
looking like you might be doing something wrong even if you have no
malicious intent. I'm not saying not to use SWFObject I'm just saying
know the risks, know the facts, know exactly what you are doing and
be 999% sure content matches what search engines see.

---------
Bobby, the Adobe SDK has nothing to do with "web search engines" it is
for server based "site search engines".

"Users of the SDK can add Flash file decompression, parsing, and
indexing features to their server-based search applications."

http://www.adobe.com/licensing/developer/search/faq/#item-1-1

What I'm saying is to use Flash with HTML text content on the front
page and not all Flash front with all HTML back. Most folks use
SWFObject with all Flash front and all HTML back and that is where you
run into risks.

[beussery]

Google just introduced video sitemaps!

This could be an "alt" content standard like I mentioned above.


http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/12/introducing-video-sitemaps.html