Thursday, July 05, 2007 at 3:15 PM
We occasionally get questions on the Webmaster Help Group about how webmasters should work with Adobe Flash. I thought it would be worthwhile to write a few words about the search considerations designers should think about when building a Flash-heavy site.
As many of you already know, Flash is inherently a visual medium, and Googlebot doesn't have eyes. Googlebot can typically read Flash files and extract the text and links in them, but the structure and context are missing. Moreover, textual contents are sometimes stored in Flash as graphics, and since Googlebot doesn't currently have the algorithmic eyes needed to read these graphics, these important keywords can be missed entirely. All of this means that even if your Flash content is in our index, it might be missing some text, content, or links. Worse, while Googlebot can understand some Flash files, not all Internet spiders can.
So what's an honest web designer to do? The only hard and fast rule is to show Googlebot the exact same thing as your users. If you don't, your site risks appearing suspicious to our search algorithms. This simple rule covers a lot of cases including cloaking, JavaScript redirects, hidden text, and doorway pages. And our engineers have gathered a few more practical suggestions:
- Try to use Flash only where it is needed. Many rich media sites such as Google's YouTube use Flash for rich media but rely on HTML for content and navigation. You can too, by limiting Flash to on-page accents and rich media, not content and navigation. In addition to making your site Googlebot-friendly, this makes you site accessible to a larger audience, including, for example, blind people using screen readers, users of old or non-standard browsers, and those on limited low-bandwidth connections such as on a cell phone or PDA. As a bonus, your visitors can use bookmarks effectively, and can email links to your pages to their friends.
- sIFR: Some websites use Flash to force the browser to display headers, pull quotes, or other textual elements in a font that the user may not have installed on their computer. A technique like sIFR still lets non-Flash readers read a page, since the content/navigation is actually in the HTML -- it's just displayed by an embedded Flash object.
- Non-Flash Versions: A common way that we see Flash used is as a front page "splash screen" where the root URL of a website has a Flash intro that links to HTML content deeper into the site. In this case, make sure there is a regular HTML link on that front page to a non-Flash page where a user can navigate throughout your site without the need for Flash.
If you have other ideas that don't violate these guidelines that you'd like to ask about, feel free to ask them in the Webmaster Help Group under Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking. The many knowledgeable webmasters there, along with myself and a cadre of other Googlers, will do our best to clear up any confusion.
Update: See our additional blog posts about Flash Indexing at Google.
78 comments:
This is probably the most important thing for any web designer to know, flash is not for entire webpages! It's also hard to navigate through, slow and for those of us with 64bit Linux computers, it's non-existent.
Thank you for this post! Hopefully people will listen to Google :)
working in a company where many of our sites are flash-heavy, it scares me to think of how many sites out there are not getting their content properly indexed, or possibly pulled from serps after being mistaken for spammy garbage. spread the word!
Designers should also weigh the advantages of Flash against the compatibility of animated GIFs. Wherever it is acceptable to use an animated gif, you'll be able to offer alt text on the img tag to help out the spiders. The ability to read animated gifs is also built directly into all popular web browsers. All that said, flash certainly is far more powerful. It's always good to know what's available though.
I think the best use of flash is to use SWFObject http://blog.deconcept.com/swfobject/ because it starts with the plain HTML alternative and your HTML content is only replaced if the user has the proper version of flash player installed using javascript. Not only does this allow you to give alternative content to those who don't have the version you have programmed for, but is extremely spider friendly, since the typical spider won't run the javascript. (Similar concepts used with sIFR). Just make sure that your alternative content matches the content within your flash movie as accurately as possible without using flash, this way you are not being biased to those who don't have flash and you aren't being deceitful to spiders.
Thanks Jason, I agree completely.
However this could be considered as cloaking:
Serving a page of HTML text to search engines, while showing a page of images or Flash to users.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66355
Isn't it time to accept that there are sites (e.g. depending on audiences) for which it perfectly make sense to offer full flash sites? The same is true for AJAX based sites. All the old arguments about inaccessibility are proven wrong by now (all depends on craftsmanship of the designer) and there are ways to support things like browser button support, deep linking etc (although I would expect browser makers to make things a little easier in the future, now that there are so much AJAX and Flash sites enriching the Web)
And if we all could agree to that, well at least to some extend ;-), that then maybe Google (and the other SE comps) could come up with a simple method that would allow designers/owners of Flash sites to simply offer non-flash enabled visitors a location to read the (same) content without the flash layer and without them being forced to use any tricks that might get them (undeserving) in trouble by the SE algos.
I am thinking on something like the alt attribute of an image tag, e.g. an altsrc attribute that could be added to the object and embed tags. Another option would be to add an entry to robots.txt stating the location (entry-point) of the alt content. Or maybe this could (also) be achieved by introducing an meta tag that tells the location off the alt content.
Why doesn't Google (or others) come up with such a solution?
Then everybody could be happy and every web designer could start making choices based on what's the best solutions for their customers and their target audience; maybe being an old school (X)HTML site, an AJAX based site, Full Flash site, a combination or even a text only site, or whatever. For every audience there is a fitting solution. Search Engine indexing shouldn't be a criteria in the choice for which technology to choose.
Dear Google Peeps, I beg you, give us a real solution and please let *US* make the choice of which technology we should and shouldn't use!
...please ;-)
Regards to all,
Benny
Thanks for posting this. I just tried to resurrect an old thread I started about making Flash sites accessible and SEO friendly on on the Crawling, indexing, and ranking Group.
The post is related to our recently published technique on how we optimize Flash sites for search engines.
If someone in the know could comment on our methods I'd greatly appreciate it. Most everything I've heard thus far on the topic seems to indicate that what we are doing is legit (not to mention effective).
Are we saying that web application developed in flex is not going to be liked by google search?
@fili
what Jason said is not so evil. Indeed this tecnique could be used within a noscript tag instead of a plain div. Thus, the replacement is semantically correct and it shouldn't be considered cloaking by googlebot.
The important is that the same content as flash is provided.
As far as Flex goes, rememeber that Web Applications are different than web sites. Not all web apps need to be searched.
As far as flash sites go, one method is to store your content outside of the flash site in xml files for example. Then check for the flash plugin using something like the scripts that flash and flex builder generate and give the flash site (which loads the xml) to those users. You can also transform that xml with an XSLT and output it in the NOSCRIPT tag for use by search engines. So you get the exact same content visible by everyone who matters.
I tend to use a deep link method which allows me to call up any page within my flash site. I then actually create a pseudo html page for each page in the site, embedding the swf & deep linking to the specific page. I can then add meta tags etc that are specific to each page within the flash site, but still retain the benefits.
Another original way is to make your site in html, then render it in flash... it's the step after sifr... have a look at
the selmer web site
There you can desactivate flash in the "Outils" drop down menu.
Well,
I do like Flash. It creates some great grafics. But, I Avoid it, since the seo method´s sugest it´s bad pratice.
Sorry about my sad English.
Adam & Mark,
Perhaps it is also worth mentioning that "alternative" content is a function of the ALT attribute and not the DIV. Either way, thanks again for your time as well as personally addressing this critical issue!
-Brian
There are three search engine friendly solutions to using Flash on a site:
1. Create a HTML version of the site. This is normally only done if an entire website is built using Flash as it is quite resource intensive.
2. Use a Noscript tag to display the unindexable content. This means that users will see the Flash file, but search engines will index the content within the Noscript tag. You must be very careful to only replicate the content in the Flash file and DO NOT try to stuff keywords in here.
3. Use the SWFObject method which is similar to the above Noscript method. If the user arriving at your site (be it search engine or person) has flash installed they will be displayed the Flash, but if they don't have Flash then they will be shown the text mark-up in the same div as the Flash file.
None of the above methods are seen as cloaking to search engines and you will not be penalised unless you try and add additional keywords, links, etc. into the Flash replacement. Cloaking refers to the whole of a webpage being cloaked and then redirecting users to another page, but methods 2 + 3 only replace the div where the flash was. The rest of the webpage is displayed correctly.
In my experience, mixing Flash with HTML is the way to go, just like described here. Use flash for pictures/slideshows, video, audio, etc. Keep it to multimedia, and build your HTML page w/ the important text around it for maximum accessibility.
I like flash,Thanks.
Glad that I read this post. I do work with a lot of Flash heavy sites. Now I can say a little bit more specific with my co-workers and my to my clients. It was really helpful. Also I will blog this post so I can share it with my co-workers.
How would Google treat the sIFR? similar as Cloaking?
I have seen some Webmasters using sIFR to display text in Heading tags to the spiders while rendering flash to the users? Isn't it cloaking?
THere isn't any mention of Googlebots actually reading the metadata embedded inside Flash.
Does Google read it or not ?
Many thanks for any info.
Here's the deal...
posting non-flash content that is equal to the flash that replaces it should not be counted by Google as cloaking. Google can't see flash, we've already established that. So in the end, what google sees and what the average viewer sees will always be different even if there is no alternative content. By adding alternative content for those without flash (including google) you are actually making the user experience and googlebot experience more similar (not less, which is what cloaking is).
If google counts flash alternative HTML as cloaking it's google's fault, not the webmaster's and google needs to fix it.
Thanks for the thought process on using Flash and not turning off the googlebot or customers. I am going to make sure that my designer has that openess on our page.
comments welcomed
www.thebanksofsaline.com
Tom@thebanksofsaline.com
Hello Team Google webmaster:
I am really happy for all your move, all your step. I am one of the old generation using Computer since 1986.
No one didn't predict where we are now. And because of it's a Network of Network, the possibility it's unlimited , like sky. Our responsibility to support the Google project. Now it's not only a search engine. It's a portal for connected to connector...
I have a quick question. I Have a web site designed with Flash some version browser didn't accept flash...
Flash put the design of web sit in an other way.
Thanks for any help.
Best regards,
M. Aulida Valery alias Kolo
CEO, Founder Multicoaching
Nun's Island, Quebec, Canada
so, if the links Google grabs out of the swf file are equivalent to the links in the noscript section, then the page is deemed "legal". However, I never hard-code the links in my flash They are created from xml downloaded by the flash. They might even be created by concatenating various strings in actionscript. I don't think the googlebot can see them. Does this means my web pages will be considered suspicious?
Should I put some hard-coded links in my flash file that match the links in my noscript, then make them invisible in the flash (assuming they're not the normal content I want to display)? In other words, do I need to cheat in order to appear not to be cheating? Should I take the exact content in the noscript section and plop it into a hidden field in the flash and bingo, I'm good?
Also, I wish Google had a tool where I could submit a page, it would immediately test that page and tell me whether it is kosher.
Flash can be such an Xtra for your website if it is done by a flash wizard. I used to build flash websites and now not anymore. With millions of new websites coming on the net everyday, I want be found in the first 3 search results... flash just doesn't get my sites there.
Jurgen Kleykamp
CEO ZenDesign
Thank you. That's great tips. I use flash on my website www.funwadi.com and now will try the flash part search engine friendly to be crawled in better manner.
my two cents;
i'm a flash designer, i feel that google is holding the advancement of the internet BACK. There are some amazing flash sites out there i'm talking ground breaking in script and creativity. these sites struggle on the serp's and its googles fault. I think google should pull its finger out of it robotic a*** and fix this problem. Flash is no longer a small thing its huge(massive) medium. Please google show us the light. Google see flash it reads everything inside it. use the swf2html tool from adobe to see what google see's inside your flash. What google needs to do is give these sites a keyword handicap. who's going to create a flash spam site really. from that we can establish that flash is pretty trust worthy. so rank it. they rank pdf's highly. bring on the Flash.
My solution. Keyword Handicap on flash files.
keep swfing,
Adam,
etoxin design
(struggling to be indexed flash designer)
Hi!!!
I would like to thank for the website, it's wonderful, I am web designer (begining) and work on BH Site www.bhsite.com.br - Hospedagem de Sites (Web Hosting) and this site is very good to me, I'm brazilian and always I can I come here to learn a lot...
Congratulations
i think this article could be interesting for you all:
http://blog.space150.com/2007/1/11/faust-flash-augmenting-standards
thank you
I've got a client who requires a to show a disclaimer for certain pages on the site to ensure that the people looking at the content are eligible.
how could this be done in a search engine friendly way without being seen as cloaking?
Please help!
I don't understand what is actually wrong with having an html based website. Are you trying to fool arround with your customer by giving your website a fancy look? I would say, we customer are not that stupid anymore. We wan't EASE not FANCY looks.
Thanks Google
I have just finished turning a site that I did back in 1998 from Flash into HTML because the company is showing virtually NOTHING in the Search Engines.
*Sigh* If we'd have known then what we know now.
Thank you for a good post, however a couple of friends and I are discussing some of the possible uses of Flash to display headlines.
I was wondering how Googlebot (and you :) view the practice where an HTML element contains text perfectly visible to the user, but that text is replaced by a Flash representation of exactly the same text?
Like
[h1 id="replacethis"]A Headline[/h1]
[script]replacewithflash('replacethis', 'urlforflash')[/script]
RE:Javascript swap and replace
I have used this practice a lot. and seems to work very well. my own personal rule is. "if the text is not in the flash file don't place it behind the flash"
Was on the converse site just the other day and i must say its one of the best flash sites on the net and on my computer it was a bit fast. looking at my site www.streetpimps.co.uk i put just a trickle bit of flash and the site just put all my work into shame so i decided to redo my site but the moment that i read THIS well indexing is important and my question and worry is such Flash heavy sites as the one that converse has........how are they Google indexed???
JMAY, you should hard code the links in your Flash alternative because if you don't, Google will not see that link connectivity. Link connectivity is a big driver of search rankings so you are doing yourself a disservice by not making the links accessible.
Hi, we are a company mainly creating flash games for other non-internet related companies. Not the kind of games you can find everywhere around the web but real campagnes based on a flash game. Of course we don't have a lot of written content.
Is it ok to leave a description of the game along with details about our client for the search robots to find or is this also seen as cloaking? It is the only way we can be found on the web.
Also, if it is allowed wich way does Google approve of more? Using the SWFObject en putting the description in a div, or loading the swf in javascript using the Javascriptflashgate and putting the description in a noscript tag.
It would be much appreciated if someone of the Google team itself could clear this up for me.
Regards, Steven
Hi Steven:
As etoxin said above: "If the text is not in the Flash file, don't place it behind the Flash."
Replacing a Flash game with textual content that isn't found in the Flash could be considered cloaking and a violation of our Webmaster Guidelines ("Don't present different content to search engines than you display to users"). But there must be a lot of relevant text that you could put on the page itself—visible to both human users and search engines—such as a description of the game, instructions on how to play, etc.
An interesting question was raised in a forum topic concerning this issue. In the SWFObject example found on the SWFObject website the text being replaced by the swf is 'This text is replaced by the Flash movie.' A lot of people don't change this, they just put their swfname in the code and upload it to their webspace. This results in 491.000 hits when you search that phrase on Google.
Shouldn't that be seen as cloaking as well? Why is this allowed but putting a description of your site (wich is far more accurate and useful) not?
Another question, is it allowed to put al the content in the replaced div. What I mean is, for example I have a flash website with 3 pages :home,products,contact. Is it allowed to put the content of all tree pages in the div or is it only allowed to put the content in the div of the page that is shown first (in this example the content of the home page) ?
RE:
"...is it allowed to put al the content in the replaced div. ... 3 pages :home,products,contact. Is it allowed to put the content of all tree pages in the div or is it only allowed to put the content in the div of the page that is shown first (in this example the content of the home page) ?"
What i suggest is split your flash movie into 3 separate but same movies. And make the home page on each swf of one of these pages. eg. home -> page1.swf
products -> page2.swf
contact --> page3.swf
make sure that all these clips still have all the other pages. place them in their own html page. linking to the other html pages in the swf replacement content.
this will mean you will rank for each page rather than a single home page. And when a user click say "company" in google they will be greeted with the company page. and they won't have to launch a new instance of flash either.
make sure that you don't put any content in the swf replacement that is not in the swf. and style it with CSS. People still see the replacement text. so make it pretty. you can pretty much have a fully functional html site if you disable flash. once flash is installed "bam" flash site. this is what this replacement JS is for. not seo.
cheers etoxin
etoxin.net
"Many rich media sites such as Google's YouTube use Flash for rich media but rely on HTML for content and navigation."
Well, maybe that's why most rich media sites like YouTube and Google look like crap designed by a three year old. Where do you people get the gall to tell us how we should split our flash up onto separate pages, or keep our interface design bland and simple?
I realize that your goal in creating a site is purely delivering and manipulating content, but why should interface designers have to work to your incredibly low standards? In short, why should creative developers be forced to make sites navigable by a blind algorithm, just to conform to the unfinished piece of hackery that's your spider? Google's sense of self importance is staggering. Who appointed you guys the lowest common denominator?
The problem is that Google is coded and run by essentially non-creative people who are not visual designers. I'm sick to death of hearing from people that they want "web 2 looking" sites that "look like google" because that's what's hip. Your site looks cheap and crappy and it's your engine that people want, that's all. If your engine can't do the work of navigating richer content, then it's a technical problem on your end, and it's offensive for you to turn that around and try to restrain designers from building new experiences because of constraints imposed by your own lack of imagination.
Creative interface design is the next frontier in web development. Look at the enormous popularity of SecondLife or WoW...bringing experiences like that into the browser is going to take creative people ignoring your constructs and thinking in entirely different ways. By explicitly attempting to punish that, you're trying to hold back the flood. But hopefully if you guys can't write a more intelligent crawler, one of your competitors can.
Josh Dintzer
Strike Productions
Bespoke Web Design
joshstrike.com
i agree entirely. as i said before. google and google only is holding the advancement of the internet back. And the sad fact is that they will probably never be able to index Rich media sites properly unless us designers follow guidelines (which i might add, don't exist).
No one ever went up to Picasso and said you have to use this 'lead pencil' for get that colour paint.
Its one of those situations that will probably never be fixed.
i've come to this solution. here it is:
-:Screw the crawler. Priority number 1 is your creative thinking.
-:If your work is that good people will find it by other means.
-:Don't make your site simply for a search engine. I've tried to make Search Engine Friendly Sites, They just look so basic and scream for something more.
-:If your making an online shop or an online library. for gods sake Flash is not the solution.
-:Creative industries work best with flash eg. Photographers, Artists, Graphic Designers, Designers in general. So make their sites flash.
-:The true reason people hate flash is because they can't create flash. Saviour the moment anybody bags out flash knowing that your a better designer than them. let them go back to their powerpoint.
-:If your want to be indexed don't use flash. Simple and clear.
-: flash is the only way to get animation on the internet successfully. Like it or lump it.
-:Silverlight will never dominate. So rest assured your years of experience with flash are safe.
lastly:
-:Don't Mix Flash and HTML. its a waste.
Hi,
Remember, websites are meant to be useful and easy to navigate - otherwise why go there? Flash sites are annoying. If someone has a flash only site - I move to another place for that which I seek. If someone does not want my business enough to create a user friendly approach - they are not worthy of my time or money. My clients are of the same approach.
Why annoying?
Once you have seen the flash it is old news - why waste time re-hashing old stuff.
Flash frequently lags a system down during the load process - once again, a client is sitting their tapping their toes - wasting their valuable time.
Flash lags systems down in general. Most people are looking at multiple sites at any given time - all of that weight and movement is resource heavy.
Flash sites are low on rich content and high on fluff. Information that can be easily found and re-found is important to many.
I may not like google - but I do appreciate that they have retained some of their more grounded personnel when it comes to spider bots. In this case, they are more in step with the majority of the internet users than some of the flash artists on this site.
The majority of internet users are no more interested in the design of the websites they visit than they are in the design of magazines they read or tv shows they watch. Meaning, they are there for the content, and in most cases, completely unaware of the design. But if you take away the design of a magazine, you have a fringe / cult product. Take away the design of a TV show and you have public access. Take away the design of a website and you have... Google? Craigslist? Something's not right here. It's a holdover from the old portals that were meant to be browsed with Lynx or Gopher. Hell, I've seen ANSI-color WWIV BBS's that looked better than iGoogle.
Yes. A lot of artists and musicians abuse Flash to slap cheap coatings on content-poor experiences that are less interactive than they should be, too preplanned, take too long to load, or run too slowly. But those intro animations and annoying menu systems are not really the point -- and would require very little indexing anyway, since there isn't much content there. What is the point is that at this moment, AS3 is far superior to any exisiting AJAX solution for providing high interactivity with content-heavy database sites. I know because I've written a huge amount of business software and db-related code in Flash that's all about serving content and giving the user a desktop-like experience in the browser. I submit that gmail, for instance, would look and run a lot better in Flash than it does in Javascript (and would have taken far less time to develop -- and be much less bug-ridden -- and probably be out of beta by now -- without having to worry about cross-browser compatability, which is an enormous issue with rich media sites in Javascript). And I believe the only reason we don't see that and a lot more real content sites done in Flash at this point is precisely because search engines are strangling the development of that content by digging their heels in and refusing to invest a relatively small amount in developing an intelligent way to index it. If they can write an engine to index PDFs, and run OCR on a million books, they ought to be able to decompile and/or blind-click and/or OCR scan Flash content, too. That the nature of this content is to be extremely flexible and interactive obviously makes this more of a challenge. But in that case, human keywording and elevated ranking of content-driven flash sites should be the norm. And what should NOT be taking place is the creation or imposition of false "standards" by which one behemoth company like Google gets to impose their restrictions on developers all and sundry simply by throwing their weight around the marketplace. This is the wrong path to take for Google, which built its company by finding better techniques to index other peoples' content that was already out there. I think it shows a Microsoft-like arrogance from them that's come along with their success, and that's why I find it so offensive.
I'd just like to applaud JoshStrike's comments above, I agree totally.
I'm waiting patiently for the day that Google (and my colleagues) realise that Flex is a superior presentation language to HTML.
Stop holding back the web!
@joshstrike: Ditto.
Actionscript 3 is a butt-kicking APPLICATION (not animation) language which is != to older Flash (AS2). Google needs to understand that Flash has evolved and the future of the internet is headed on a collision-course with Flash. Everyone is talking about Web 2.0, but it hasn't been defined yet.. or so people think.
Web 2.0 == Flash.
why my site chmer.com not indexed
http://www.google.com.tw/search?aq=f&complete=1&hl=zh-TW&q=site%3Achmer.com&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E5%B0%8B&meta=
but in my webmaster tool , it said the site is indexed by google?
josh strike certainly talks a good game, so I was inspired to check out his site.
Tiny text, pushed low on the page by a big, slow loading flash movie with jerky animation. The UI for exploring his design portfolio is puzzling and opaque, and ultimately, frustrating. All too common.
I shouldn't really stoop to respond to the flame, dex, but I'll take it as a legitimate critique. I know my site's UI can be frustrating for some. In fact, it's meant to be a bit of a puzzle, and opaque as such. I design interfaces for a living. Knowing the rules and constantly being forced to conform to them, I chose to make my own site truly experimental and out of the blue. Some of the interface puzzles take more patience and exploration than others. It was not my intent to make my own site easy to navigate; the goal was to experiment with new forms.
I should add that I wouldn't expect a search engine to ever be able to index my site. The criticism I've leveled at Google here is over their unwillingness to index even the most basic, static flash sites, like the ones I did at www.thebarkerlounge.com or www.buvaphonic.com .
For all that, I'm sorry you didn't enjoy my site more. It is meant to be explored on relatively fast machines with fast connections. Command+ will increase the font display size in your browser, if you're interested in reading th addenda below the main feature.
Finally, feel free to post a link to your own site, if you think you could teach me a thing or two.
I would have to completely disagree with Dolphie, saying that "Flash sites are annoying. . ." and are not user friendly. That's ridiculous. Flash sites can be just as user Friendly, if not more, than any HTML site. Take a look at my site, http://www.text-to-art.com and tell me if that is annoying or difficult to navigate. It is about as easy as any HTML site. We develop interactive marketing CDs and web sites for businesses and the very last thing we want is for anything to appear difficult . . . including our 100% Flash site! It all comes down to the designer.
Why isn't hungarian language in Google Translator? What is probleme with our language? I'd very like to put into my homepage: www.kaposlogisztika.extra.hu
if will be that!
simo90
heres the problem with your website:
#1. it takes an incredibly long time to load on a broadband connection.
#2. your scroll wheel on your mouse has been rendered useless. Youre making us relearn how to navigate websites.
#3. click any link and it takes another 20 seconds to load.
#4. ctrl f has been disabled so you cannot find any words on the page.
#5. clicking the header gives you a drop down menu instead of taking you to a web page. Youre making us relearn how to navigate the websites.
#6. clicking a link gives you a page that moves sideways that proves to be a pointless animation
#7. You cannot bookmark any particular page, because they are all one page.
#8. every single web browser is useless because you do not allow us to use the back button to get to the previous page.
#9. AND WTF IS UP WITH THE SWIRLING PICTURES!? Thats user friendly? the pictures move with the mouse. is it a game to try to click a moving picture and stop it?
#10. after the 3rd try, i finally clicked the picture that i wanted.. because i had to relearn how to navigate websites... now i have to wait for the picture to increase in resolution.. another 5 seconds im not getting back.
#11. What is the point of the animation in the 'call us'....link.. page... whatever? if theres no point of it, why have it?
Once again, the only people that like flash programming are the website developers. We give you lists upon lists on why flash is so terrible, yet you continue to give us the line 'its not terrible if implemented correctly'. NO FLASH IS EVER IMPLEMENTED CORRECTLY!
Ouch.
While Flash might not have been the best choice for something like that site, it's nonetheless the best tool we have for building graphics-intensive dynamic apps on the web. Without it we'd be stuck building games, trading platforms and data analytics tools in Java, the virtual machine for which is slow and clunky by comparison. And there are times where the goal is the UI experiment for its own sake, and forcing the user to think differently and explore, rather than make things easy to figure out. The website can be a fine art piece, or it can be informational. Though usually not both at the same time. It's wrong, though, to say that websites must be purely utilitarian, which has been at the heart of the webmonkey argument against Flash since '98.
So while business and sales websites should generally conform to the standards you're talking about, there's no reason art sites, music sites or game sites should have to follow those rules.
Thanks for useful post
@josh.
I disagree again that nontraditional sites for gaming, music, or movies are out of the cast of flash hate.
These sites are once again there for information. When information is taking so long to load, you piss users off.
Please post a nontraditional site that has good use of flash.
Check out the Favorite Website Awards at http://thefwa.com ...their site, and tons of sites they link to, are great studies in well-integrated flash use...
Where do we begin?
The site you posted:
Scroll wheel now changes the page instead of.. scrolling
There is no such thing as a page, because your web browsers: back, stop, and refresh buttons do not work.
I click once to go to the site, i then have to click again to go to the site because it opens up just some information on the link.
Fine.
Lets go to a gaming site: bioshock for ps3.
"Click to enter" (seriously? the skip intro button is the most used button on a website)
You have GOT to be joking!
You enter the site, it opens a new browser window (not just a tab), resizes the window, removes my browser so i am forced to navigate with their options, embedded music with no way to turn off!! oh it gets better. not only does it have one skip intro button, it has two!!!!!
I HAVE TO NAVIGATE WITH MY ARROW KEYS!!!!
I cant handle that anymore.
Maybe the second top rated page i go to will be better:
Ill go to the hancock movie site. You would go to this site obviously to learn about the movie.
Here we go again.
My browser is rendered completely useless by another flash site!
lets see what kind of information i can find:
Were at two minutes on a dsl connection and counting.. still have not seen a thing on the page worth a shit.
How do i shut the music off?
Awesome. because the video is still loading, i cant click any of the links.
So i click About, and get this, to close the information about the video, the site has to load!!!
Now who wouldnt be driven insane by that same 4 chords repeating with no way to shut it off?
Lets do this. You can pick a site that YOU think is well done, and we will visit it.
I don't know man. I think you've got a really slow connection or a serious chip on your shoulder about flash. People are gonna keep making sites like these, with lots of video and crazy interfaces, and sometimes they'll work and sometimes they won't, but the web can't be stuck in dhtml forever. Point is, google needs to find a way to index it, 'cause this is what's out there.
Not every site on the fwa is great, I agree, and certainly a lot of them take too long to load. But come on, you don't have to figure out a new way to use a web browser to get around the fwa site itself. It's pretty intuitive. Users can learn pretty quickly. And users understand that the back button doesn't work on flash sites where you never changed pages to begin with, because things just moved around on the screen. IE and Mozilla aren't exactly the last word in great interface design, either.
I think you're exaggerating the difficulties here.
Warning:
Have You Stunted Your
Professional Growth Because
Shaking Chocolate Milk
Is Too Hard For You?
One of the best episodes of Seinfeld is when Elaine is whining about how much she hates chocolate milk because it is so hard to shake! Jerry is just standing there, effortlessly giving the milk a few shakes. After all her crying, he just looks at her and says, “Yeah, this is real hard.”
That scene came to mind as I read Andy’s whining about my Flash site, actually, all Flash sites for that matter. He rants and raves about how ‘hard’ Flash sites are to ‘navigate,’ how hard it is to ‘relearn’ to use them, and when things ‘move,’ God forbid, “how useless!”
I have a graphic that was actually moving on the Call Us page!! Oh, no! Movement?! Horrible. Bad web designer! Bad!
Andy’s says,
“What is the point of the animation in the ‘call us’ ...link..page...whatever? If theres no point of it, why have it?”
Well, let’s see? How about, it makes the site more interesting, attractive, and most importantly, it draws your eye to the information beside the graphic . . . like my contact info! Hmmm, is that a good use of movement? For me it is! How about you? Andy wouldn’t seem to agree. I think most marketers would say, “Yeah, good use.”
The next thing Andy complained about was how I presented 65 images that allowed prospects to see my work. I decided to present them in a large, 3D circular wall that slowly rotated around so all the thumbnails would be presented within 5-10 seconds. If you see a particular image you want to view a little more closely, you can click on it to see if full screen. Very nice, very attractive. Plus! Let me say this before we get to Andy’s comment, there is both an audio explanation and a textual explanation for how to see the images full screen (i.e., “click on the image you want to see full screen” Not too hard . . . right?). OK, so here is Andy’s comment:
“AND WTF IS UP WITH THE SWIRLING PICTURES!? Thats user friendly? the pictures move with the mouse. is it a game to try to click a moving picture and stop it? after the 3rd try, i finally clicked the picture that i wanted.. because i had to relearn how to navigate websites... now i have to wait for the picture to increase in resolution.. another 5 seconds im not getting back.”
OK, granted, maybe Andy’s system doesn’t have speakers, so he didn’t hear the very clear explanation, and maybe Andy didn’t bother to read the single textual sentence right above the photos, and maybe Andy’s mouse is an antique and doesn’t work very well (more on that in a moment), and maybe Andy has a 28 or 56k modem, . . . whatever the case . . . Andy, you’re not part of my target audience! What you fail to understand, is not all web sites are designed for every person. My target audience is businesses, not someone who is just surfing around on an old system, with an incredibly slow connection. Before you whine about how long it took for your system to load my site, remember, it is possible that that web site was not designed for you!
Also, I’m sorry you had such a hard time clicking on a photo. Even so, I think the problem is not with the web site, but with your own ability to click on things. Maybe it’s time to upgrade your mouse! You see, Jerry spent infinitely more effort shaking the chocolate milk a few times than it takes to click on the photo! I’m not sure I would even admit on this forum that it took you 3 times to actually click on one of the photos! I would think that that would be a little embarrassing.
Now, I do agree with you on one point: if you have never seen this method of displaying photos, you would have to learn how to click on a picture to see it full screen. However, remember, there was a audio explanation as well as a textual explanation.
Now, if you can’t get it after that, plus the fact that it’s not all that difficult to figure out in the first place, I don’t know what to say, other than, “You’re not part of my target audience.”
I have consciously decided to target those who are a little more web savvy, have a mouse that is able to click on slowly moving pictures, have speakers or have the ability to read a single sentence. If you don’t like that . . . sorry.
Let me touch one more time on your mouse. You said,
“your scroll wheel on your mouse has been rendered useless. Youre making us relearn how to navigate websites.”
Well, my mouse is 3-4 years old and the scroll wheel works fine for my site. I have a different computer that is around 10 yrs old and the scroll wheel on that computer works fine on my web site as well. I have a 3rd computer that is probably 7 yrs old and guess what? The scroll wheel works on that one as well.
Again, we keep coming back to your mouse or your ability to use your mouse. Every thing seems to work fine for me and others who have used my site, so I’m not sure why you can’t get your scroll wheel to work??? Of course, realize that it won’t work if all the text already fits on the page. Scrolling only works when there is actually text below what you can physically see.
Now, I realize that it is certainly possible that it doesn’t work for certain brands, so if others have this same problem, please let me know so I can fix it. But, everything I have tested works fine.
I could go on and on, but I think I have made my point. I could answer all your comments, but I really don’t have the time. Of course, one you missed was that Flash sites don’t rank with google. Hmmm, I wonder then, why my Flash site has been up for only a few months and I already rank #10 for “custom marketing tools” and #15 for “custom marketing kits,” both of which would cost a few bucks if I paid for them with pay-per-click.
I agree that you can do a better job with SEO on HTML sites. Even so, even if my site was an HTML site, I don’t have the time, energy or money right now to get it to rank on the first page or two for the key words that relate to my market. After all, my category is a rather popular one, web design, interactive CDs, video. Yes, yes, I realize that you don’t try to rank using such general words anyway, but the point is, ranking is more than using HTML and making sure you use the correct words. Getting a top ranking site takes a bit of work.
As you can see, I’m not saying Flash has no faults and it is the answer for everyone! Not at all. However, it’s not too hard to point out a bunch of weaknesses of HTML sites. Right? You use what gets the particular job your working on done. You use the right tool for the particular job your working on. If guess the adage, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” fits here.
Not everything is a nail Andy.
WHAT ANDY FAILS TO TELL YOU . . .
You know, the other problem I have with Andy's comments is that they lack moral integrity. Andy complains about how my Flash photo display takes a long time (5 seconds on his system) to download the full version of the image when you click on it.
The truth of the matter is, the only thing that is happening when he clicks is the full size photo downloads. Nothing else. Just like what happens on an HTML site. So you see, what he DOESN'T TELL YOU is he has the same problems on HTML sites.
Basically, Andy can't load anyones web site quickly and has decided to vent his personal frustrations on this, and probably other, forums. In effect, he is wasting all of our time.
You know, Andy, you're one of those guys who is so single focused, you can't see anything but that which is right in front of you. You say, "Please post a nontraditional site that has good use of flash."
What you mean by that is, "Show me a Flash site that acts just like an HTML site." Well, if Flash developers wanted another HTML site, why would they use Flash in the first place?
If you did find a Flash site of which you approve, then I'd say, "Why in the world did this guy go to all the trouble of using Flash when he could have just used HTML?"
[URL="http://www.text-to-art.com"]http://www.text-to-art.com[/URL]
Dude, Andy is the definition of "troll"...he's not going to say anything nice about Flash, or AS coders. Don't let it get to you. Your site's fine.
There is so much to respond too, im not sure where to begin.
If that carton of milk had a device that shook it up, then i would agree that it would be difficult to use. Weve come to expect the internet to have standards. We expect the back button to take us back, we expect the right click to pull up a user menu, we expect the spinning circle on the cursor when something is loading.
Flash goes around these expectations, therefore becomes very limiting, almost to the point of being frustrating. A website that is frustrating turns people off.
Your argument that I dont know what I'm talking about because of the image loading time of being slow is absurd. Of course I know html takes time to load, but once again, the expectation of it loading is reaffirmed by the spinning circle on your cursor. without this, users feel that nothing was clicked.
Do you think people, non programmers, like to learn how someone made the site in order to use it? You're saying that instead of the turn signal lever to be on the right hand of the steering wheel, we should put it on the left hand.
Simo, you ask if your website is friendly to use, then we say no, and you get defensive. 'Well my site is designed for this. so what you say doesnt matter.. or... my website was designed for internet savy people'. We explain why we think the site is bad, and you cannot listen, because you are a flash programmer.
I went back to your website, and found that my scroll wheel does work. there is just such a long lag that I didnt bother staying around long enough for it to actually work.
You say that I should be embarrassed because your picture navigation was difficult, and once again, you prove my point. You refuse to listen to what others say, because you programmed it. Not a SINGLE internet user has come across a site that has pictures that rotate, then slow down and move when a mouse cursor is over them. You make people learn how you programmed the site.
I am not a troll. A troll is someone who hates something then never gives a reason why something was bad. I break it down step by step and tell you issues I see.
Im going to skip responses to a few points because it is 2 am.
I will leave you with one thing. The ability to copy text from your website was nice. 99% of the time, this is unavailable.
Hi
Flash is not for entire webpages! It's also hard to work for
SEO .
There are many good companies in India that make such services easy and affordable, just browse the net and make your pick… http://www.mag-corp.com
It's ironic and pathetic that people like kabon and ashok are posting garbage in this thread to raise the pagerank on their crappy, ugly, completely non-flash-related template websites.
It just goes to show that there are a million slaves, whole masses of vermin who are just dying to follow and imitate every flash designer in this thread who actually generates original content.
If GOOGLE would stop giving preference to crappy, copyright-violating, free-speech-suppressing, backwater sh*thole countries and their corrupt dictatorships, and the petty thieves, pirates, pornographers, rip-off artists and other assorted roaches that run most of the sites out of such hellholes as .cn, .ru, etc, maybe they could actually help civilization advance instead of being just the lazy referee on every stupid-ass scam between Tulsa and Sevastopol.
But maybe corporate character is too much to ask of a massive formless entity that's never more than 51% in control of what its own servers are actually being used for.
Google doesn't care about web standards, either -- when it comes to their own site.
Go to iGoogle and click a news link. Hit the back button when you get there. As soon as google reloads, the forward button is disabled in the browser.
What do you call that, when someone expects you to behave in a certain way, but fails to live up to their own professed standards?
very nice! Thanks!
http://us724.com
"i guess it still attract viewer due to uniqueness of the site set-up. "
Yes, but will this keep regulars coming to the site?
very nice post
I've just (more or less) finished a purely Flash site for a client. I don't know why they wanted all Flash but they did so that's what it is. Anyway given some of the none-too-forgiving opinions expressed here I am curious to see what people think of it. The videos are encoded at 900Kb (again, their spec) so you need a solid 1Mb connection or it will make you crazy.
www.arccreative.co.uk
I have to say that I like developing with Flash. I know there are downsides but you can easily make things look however you want and the IDE is pretty good - although you can easily write spaghetti if you're not careful. You also have to put some effort into how the content loads - more than a few seconds of blank page and most people are gone, including me.
Flash suffers (at least partly) because it's easy to make garish animated sites with weird navigation whether it's helpful or not, so naturally people do. But you don't have to...
YouTube should not be used as an example of accessibility:
It doesn't work properly without JavaScript turned on, thereby annoying me every time I visit the site and actually want to watch something.
It doesn't use the <video> element. We would all love to get rid of Flash, but cannot as long as it is required for sites such as this. The flash embed/object element can be the fallback content for the video element, and those with advanced browsers will be served better, those with old browsers will be none the wiser.
Do Google plan to put into practice what they preach here, and fix their video site?
I for one am completely and totally disappointed at the majority of of negative posts on this subject. For the first time in the history of mankind humans have created a global communication network which allows the population of the entire world to communicate with each other and this is what we're concerned with? Who cares if your website isn't friendly to some program in some search engine, the movie the Godfather wasn't created so that coke-a-cola could put up a billboard behind Marlon Brando and sell soft drinks. The internet is not about making money, making money is okay and using it for that is okay too, just don't get so full of yourselves that you forget how amazing of a moment this is in the history of planet earth and mankind. The internet being a way to make money is just one aspect of the network, period. If Google decides to not help programmers build interesting websites that can be indexed correctly someone else will and ten years from now teenagers won't even know what Google means, the company will change with the times or it won't but the 21st century is here and time stands still for no one. My personal advice is to keep making internet content as good in every way as you can and forget about what the search engines think, the world wide web belongs to the human race and we'll dictate it's structure.
I thingk google is the brain and heart of the internet, so I do care what google think about my sites if I want my site to be worldwide, because google has worked so much on the internet and my internet life is google, so I see google dying only when internet dyes, because google will always be in the internet's history
by the way, I love flash too and many people do, there's a real solution today for indexing flash? or maybe I can make another website in a subdomain?
Thank you to everyone here in sharing their great ideas.
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