Hi, everybody --
Today we reviewed the SEO analysis principles we talked about last time, running through a real-life example at: http://www.razor.com
If you missed it, your life will forever be a little emptier, a little sadder. But the basic point was that they've got some good factors and some bad factors. The other important point was that Firefox is WAY better than Internet Explorer. (Because it colors code for you, when you "view source." Much easier to skip all the boring stuff that way.)
And the other, other important point was our discussion on optimizing Flash.
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OPTIMIZING FLASH
The Problem: Flash is great for user interfaces (arguably -- though it has also produced some of the worst user interfaces ever to darken the Internet). But search engines have a hard time with it. Ever try to bookmark the middle of a Flash movie? You can't! You always go back to the beginning when you reload the page. For the same reason, search engines can't point users to the middle of a Flash movie. Spiffy example: http://www.beatboxmixer.com -- and try Google [site:beatboxmixer.com] search. Ouch!
It's also hard for crawlers to verify that the content they parse out of a Flash file is what end users will actually see. So, we have to get creative.
1. Dual sites -- You've probably seen this before. On the home page, there's a link for VIEW FLASH and another for VIEW HTML. Then there are two complete sites. This is the basic option, probably most expensive, but most straightforward. The real trick is keeping the sites synchronized. All the SEO links will be to the HTML version of the site. Example: http://www2.warnerbros.com/mustlovedogs/.
2. Separate Flash Movies on Each Page -- A site can be entirely Flash, but still separated across many individual HTML pages. The Flash movies will each have to link to the container pages of the other Flash movies. A little complicated, but if you use consistent naming conventions, it's not too bad. An easy upgrade to this is including some HTML-based links on each page and creating a standard sitemap. My personal favorite example of this type of site: http://www.homestarrunner.com. (Definitely worth a look -- you MUST check out this one: http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail51.html) (And see? You can bookmark specific pages within the Flash, this way.)
3. Separate Flash Movies with Noscript Tags -- Noscript tags were designed specifically to help out with problems like this. The idea is that search engines (and anybody else) who can't read Flash (or any other tech element) can read the noscript tags instead. It's like building dual sites but then wrapping them all together. The problem is that search engines can't give a lot of credit to the noscript content, since they know most people will ususally never see it. But you may have heard of Nike? They do it this way: http://www.nike.com. (Check their Google [site:nike.com] results.) The upgraded version of this is just including all the noscript content as actual content, presented below the Flash page, but that only works for certain sites.
4. HTML-Core with Flash Elements -- So, somebody with an existing investment in a massive, Flash site is probably not going to like this one, but if you're starting from scratch, this is a great way to go. Build an HTML-based site and add Flash in specific areas. Check out http://www.shiver7.com. Animated navigation, live logos, lots of interesting interactivity. And lots of SEO-friendly content and URL structure.
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So, we didn't go into that much detail on the call. And mostly I wrote this all because I got carried away once I got started. But it's good information!
Use it wisely. :o)