Flash sites SEO cheats: front-end solutions

The best way for Flash sites’ search engine optimization (SEO) would be using backend scripting to detect the user agent and generate a full HTML file for search engines. But of course, the server must support CGI scripts, php, perl, asp ect and the devoloper must know how to use it. If you don’t know how to do CGI or you want to get some quick fix, read on.

Here’s a list of contents that currently Google picks up or not.

Yes No
Page title Javascript
HTML text in <body> CSS
Static text in swf MetaData
Dynamic text’s default value in swf Keywords
  xml files
  database

Because most of the Flash sites are driven by xml technology or at least they load external files, very likely the contents of the site won’t be picked up by Google or any other search engines. From the table we can see that, the cheat would be to have some “real” text in the HTML page but invisible to the users.

The cheat list:

  1. Put a dummy page with all keywords and descriptions for search engine to crawl. Refresh the page within 0 second to the real Flash page <meta http-equiv = “refresh” content = ” 0; URL = index2.html” >. However, the drawback is you will lose the referring information. The trackings of the site will be hard to analyze.
  2. Use <noscript> to enclose keywords. Well, they’ll be seen if the user turn off javascript but it’s very unlikely.
  3. Use CSS to hide keywords. Define some style and set the display property to “none”. Put your keywords and descriptions on the very top of the page and set the paragraph’s style to the hidden one. There’s some rumor saying that some smart search engines can detect this CSS cheat. But I haven’t encountered any yet. But it’s very possible that search engines may want to implement this.
  4. Since CSS is so direct, let’s use Javascript to complicate things a bit. Put the keywords and descriptions in a <div name = “keywords” > tag. Write an onLoad function and set the <div> section invisible.

*One of my old favorite cheats failed me recently since Google started to index swf files. I used to put keywords under a 100% width 100% height swf file. Because I hide the scrollbar by setting the body over-flow to ignore, the user won’t be able to see them. But now because Google processes the full screen swf file, I notice the keywords at the bottom are not indexed by Google.

DO NOT abuse the SEO cheats. The cheats are for better indexing in search engines. If a site puts lots of non-relevant keywords, it may get banned by search engines. Plus, it irritates people when they reach the site but can’t find what they are searching for.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 8th, 2006 at 12:19 am and is filed under Others. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  1. Geoff

    Why cheat at all? There are perfectly legitimate ways to get your content index by google (and all the other engines) without the risk of being blacklisted.

    Here’s an article I wrote on the subject a few months ago:
    http://blog.deconcept.com/2006/03/13/modern-approach-flash-seo/

  2. 5566

    I think we are talking about the same thing. You call it “modern approach” but I call it SEO cheats.
    Most of my projects use swfObject to do the indexing. But as when I was writing this, I realize swfObject is not the only way, and other methods are more direct. In the end I gave up the idea of introducing swfObject.

  3. Yet Another Blog from Luar » Doubt on Flex as the best option (3): Bad printing experience

    [...] When we talk about usability problem in Flash, you may expect I will repeat the back button support, deep link, save web page problem, SEO in Flash, of course not necessary. Ha! I understand we should talk in the same domain, use Flex to build “enterprise application”, “Intranet application”, which are not public facing, consumer website. We do not need to care about back button, SEO… those problems. [...]

  4. kabababrubarta

    Cool! kabababrubarta

  5. Ern

    What about the Full Flash sites though. What if you have a kick ass site and you want it to be indexed? Some companies are moving to an awesome site that is full flash to engulp their clients and show their potential clients that their money is well spent with this full flash animated site.

    The web is moving to a more full flash, movie, “commercial” based world .. so what now? These sites want to be indexed to!! Erns World

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