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Posts Tagged ‘Flash’

Flash, brought to us by our good friends over at Adobe, is one of the most vibrant, appealing, and unique mediums for design. However, Flash also comes with a number of drawbacks when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. While this doesn’t mean that you should never use Flash elements, is does mean that you should be a little bit wary, and that you should spend the time to thoroughly educate yourself. These three drawbacks of Flash can server as the beginning of your education.

1. Search engines are still learning it. While the search engines have made massive strides forward in reading the content in Flash elements, they still haven’t mastered it. If you have a full flash website that’s located at a single URL, the search engines won’t be able to differentiate between your pages. Elements and includes that are in your flash may not appear in the correct order to the search engines. The content inside those elements also lacks some of the organizational properties, such as header tags, which Search Engines look at.

2. It loads more slowly. Yes, it’s true, there are some old people out there, as well as hillbillies trapped in the wilder parts of the country, who are using dial-up. While this tragedy won’t last forever, the slower load times are currently painful for them. Beyond that, the load time of your site is a portion of the major SEO algorithms, so slower loading can mean lower ranking.

3. Flash is distracting, and not always in a good way. Remember that users are impatient, and will usually decide whether or not to stay on your site within the first few seconds of being there. While a single flash element that’s catchy can help your case, more complex elements can be harmful. After all, users won’t wait for a long story to unfurl in a flash banner. Beyond that, users may be distracted from any other content on the page while movement is happening elsewhere, even if they’re not focusing on the flash element itself. As a result, they pay less attention to everything.