There are many pros and cons to Flash websites, and because of the pros, many people want to use them even knowing that many people hate Flash. If you must create a Flash website be sure to avoid the pitfalls outlined by The Design-O-Blog in their article Flash Fail. Even if the worst that happens is that the Flash hurts your SEO that can still be devastating. But if you use Flash the way the Flash Fail sites do, you'll lose more than search engine ranking.
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I’ve never considered building an entire site with Flash. Maybe it’s because of the kind of sites that I work on that I’ve never considered it. I can see where “maybe” a high-quality company, may consider Flash where the target audience is used to seeing high quality graphics. But with many of the new technologies (Ajax, CSS, jQuery, Dojo, etc.), it would be a shame to limit yourself to just Flash.
I hate Flash web sites. They slow down the browsers I use. The more Flash movies and flash video(flv) or mpeg4 video(mp4) in the page the slower the browsers I use get. Flash sites seem to consume the CPU. Or maybe it just amateur/ignorant web developers who don’t know how to use the web technology properly. I fully realize the benefits of Flash and vector based animations, I wish the OVERUSE of the technology would stop.
I agree with Ted. Flash is a resource hog. The only thing that can be said for Flash sites is that they look shiny.
My opinion is that Flash has limited uses. It’s good in small doses, but entire sites? Ewwwwwww! I just don’t bother trying to use sites built in Flash.
flash should be used intelligently.
Everything is good, when done well.
For example, I’ve heard people telling me to make my website entirely in flash (like the fashion designers’ websites for example), and they didn’t understand my arguments against that. I mean, I can achieve the same things I would aim for in the flash website with just some AJAX to the XHTML. And it would be less of a pain in the ass to maintain and expand. But some people would probably find it easier to use flash instead.
And I don’t think building a flash version of my (or any) website, just for the sake of it, would be worth the wasted time and effort. I’m even hesitant in using a normal (non-flash) splash screen, for example.
Not a big fan of building sites entirely in Flash. They are extremely hard to optimise for SEO.
However, using flash elements within a web page can be useful EG Video etc…
I agree splash screens should never be used whether flash or not.
Most folks do not know that Google can actually find and index text in Flash. (They are the only SE capable of this now, but others say they are working on it.) Having said that, I still try to talk clients out of All-Flash sites. Here is a tool you can use to test what text Google can see in a .swf.
Flash is like any tool, web related or not. It should be used for the right job. You wouldn’t use a fork to each soup, you’d use a spoon. Picking the right tool for the job is one of the essential skills of a web designer.
While Google (and AlltheWeb.com) can index flash files it’s important to note that because Flash itself has no concept of document structure (HEadings bullet lists etc) no will search engines that spider it. This means that placement of key phrases for stronger SEO is nearly impossible. So if SEO is important don’t build pure flash sites.
Having said that, flash can be a phenominal tool for creating a really rich interactive marketing message when used properly within a web page.
As well as looking at the flash ‘no-nos’ it’s worth having a look at the weekly web design top 40, which does tend to be a biased towards flash sites, but often has some great examples of how flash can be used to great effect. It’s fair to say that 99% of these sites are not aiming to gain traffic through search angines and have very specific target audiences who will respond to the type of site that is built entirely in Flash. So not a broad cross section, but worth a look.
All things in balance…
I agree 2K. I am aware that google can index swf and infact read the text if done correctly.
However, like 2K explains part of SEO is the structure of the page, also text in h1 h2 tags along with keyphrases that are strong underlined bullets etc… are all part of making an seo page.
Now having said that flash is great and can do some amazing stuff I just look at it as something else you can include within a page.
Also if for any reason someone doesnt have the plugin all is not lost and people can still access the information EG safari on the iphone (by the way isnt it about time apple sorted that out).