flash (macromedia): What is a Flash Movie?
A flash movie, or shock wave file (SWF), is the file format published when a
Flash movie is exported. A SWF file can also be exported by several other
Macromedia or Adobe Products. The SWF is usually an animation, dynamic menu, or
highly interactive web-based application embedded into an HTML page. Flash
files, when exported correctly for the best web-based optimization, are
compressed, thus making their file size lightweight. The SWF format is ideal
for presenting vector-based, interactive and animated graphics with sound and
video for the web. Vector images are ideal because they will not ?pixilize? if
stretched or compressed. Flash files can also contain text which can be
animated, static or dynamically populated from external sources, such an XML
file or a database. Text embedded in a Flash file, for many years, could not be
read by search engines. However, recent updates by Macromedia are making this a
possibility.

Problems with Flash and Search Engines
Historically, it has been difficult to get Flash content indexed and ranked by
search engines. In the past, search engines, such as Yahoo and Google, did not
spider Flash content as they could not read the compressed file and much of the
text inside the SWF appeared as graphics to the search engines.

The main page of a web site, if Flash-based, rarely ranked well, unless
off-page factors such as link popularity or link reputation were sufficient
enough to carry the page. Flash files that were indexed by Google, Lycos and
other search engines, which did not have any text or key words associated with
them in the search engine results pages (SERP).

Techniques Used in the Past to Make Flash Visible to Search Engines
Traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques would help your site
get indexed, but not rank for search terms. Every web site needs at least one
HTML page to load into a browser. For a web site developed completely in Flash,
developers would embed their flash files into an HTML document and then create
the meta tags in the head section of the HTML file. They would also add
descriptive HTML text for the search engines in the body section of the HTML
page, then use CSS positioning and percentages to load the Flash move in a
pixel-perfect location over the top of text. This particular technique should
not be used any longer, as search engines will view this technique as an
attempt to add hidden text, and hidden text will incur a penalty from the
engines.

What Macromedia has Done to Make Flash More Visible to Search Engines
In the past, Google did index Flash files. Anyone can test this fact out by
searching in Google using the ?filetype? operator to restrict your search. For
example, try the following search: "Casino Games filetype:SWF?. The SERP will
include over 200 Flash files, which are indicated by the ?Flash? text to the
left of the listing.

Some search engines are now using the Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK
(Software Development Kit). For example, Google, AllTheWeb, Lycos, and other
sites can readily display links to Flash content. Flash Search SDK is and open
source tool that allows search engines to modify it to suit their needs. With
this level of customization, it is likely that the major search engines will
modify SDK, making it difficult for website owners to know exactly what
information will be pulled out of the SWF file or how it will impact actual
rankings.

The Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK can be found at
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/download/search_engine. According to
the Macromedia/Adobe web site, The SDK includes an application named
'swf2HTML'. Swf2HTML extracts text and links from a Macromedia Flash SWF file,
and returns the data to an HTML document. Swf2HTML is provided as a compiled
application and as a static library for linked library implementation. SDK can
interoperate any links that are in the action script so long as adhere to the
following criteria:
? The link is contained within single quotes (' ') or double quotes (" "), and
? The link prefix is HTTP, and
? The link suffix is HTM, HTML, CFM, SWF, JPG, JPEG, MP3, or WAV
By default SDK extracts the following text from your flash file:
? Text on stage in the current movie (dynamic text, static text, or input text
that has an initial value assigned)
? Text on stage in a movie that is called with movieClip.attachMovie()
Google can see certain text in Flash files now, but how and where certain text
gets extracted depends on what you do with that text in the Flash presentation.
For example, text that is static or is used in a motion tween can be read as a
single instance with SDK. However, some animation involves converting text into
a symbol and then using multiple copies of that symbol to achieve a desired
effect. This will create duplicate instances of your text to the SDK output,
which may be viewed as duplicate content and not given much importance by
Google.

Using the SDK tool, any developer can get the text output from the SWF and see
how search engines view the extractable text of any SWF. On a Windows operating
system, you can go to the DOS prompt and execute the swf2HTML application very
easily. The following is an example from the DOS prompt: C:\sdk\swf2HTML -o
test.HTML C:\sdk\crt_webfiles\test.swf

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques Used Historically for Flash
Each Flash file does not need to be uploaded independently and called as a SWF
file; rather a Flash file can be embedded in a standard HTML document. One of
the best techniques is to create a modular web site, where there are several
Flash files which make up the web page combined with standard HTML elements. A
hybrid site such as this, works especially well, if your navigation uses
traditional HTML links. You can use cascading style sheets to give the
appearance of flash text links. This type of hybrid site will always rank
better than an all Flash site ? all other factors being equal. It's also
important to have your HTML page title correct, regardless of anything else.
Several search engines look at meta titles first. In addition to the page
title, you can add meta tags to the head of the file. Outside of the actual
HTML page, off page factors are important. There has been much written in
recent articles that reciprocal links are not as important any longer, but
certainly, one-way links pointing to your site from highly relevant and high
ranking pages will increase your page rank. In addition links from prominent
directories, such as Yahoo and Business.com, placed in the most relevant
categories will help. One-way inbound links from relevant sites is still the
best way to increase your ranking with or without Flash.

This is very interesting. I have been searchiing for ways to get our companies
Flash based sites ranked in the search engine. I was worried about all the new
Jagger updates and if I did anything, would I get penalized for it. I will try
this out on some of our sites and see what happens.

thanks so much Rockcoast.

You can also use CSS to match your font's color on your html page's body so
that the font is not "visible" to the eye but visible to a search engine.
Sneaky.
For example:
<style>
body{ background-color:blue; color:blue;}
</style>
This will match the font to the background color.

BakerBaker19689, you want to be extreamly careful with the practice of using
..CSS to change the color of text to the color of the background. Their is an
exteamly high probablility that the search engines will pick this up as hidden
text and apply a penalty to your web site. For proof of this, check out the
http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html. The guidlines state,

Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations:

Avoid hidden text or hidden links.

Sneaky and risky I wouldn't suggest this because it's only a matter of time
before the search engines catch you then ban your site.

[q][i]Originally posted by: [b][b]BakerBaker19689[/b][/b][/i]
You can also use CSS to match your font's color on your html page's body so
that the font is not "visible" to the eye but visible to a search engine.
Sneaky.
For example:
<style>
body{ background-color:blue; color:blue;}
</style>
This will match the font to the background color.[/q]