Flash is great. Sometimes, I find it hard to live on the web without it. Of course, depending upon the sites I hit, my state-of-the art iPhone and iPad seem like they were created in the 70s. But as wonderful and useful as Flash can be, it’s poison when it comes to SEO.
Whenever I’m approached by a company to raise its search engine ranking, I start with an audit of their current site. Nine times out of 10, when a company is dissatisfied with its ranking, the site is built in Flash or uses it heavily. To most search engines, a Flash movie is about as useful as a stop sign or a dead end.
Flash is pretty. And when it’s used appropriately, it can be downright beautiful. But if it’s used poorly, it’s SEO suicide.* I can write the most elegant, search-engine-optimized copy, but if it’s hiding in a Flash image, it’s absolutely useless.
All that said, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pointed this out to clients only to then watch them cling to their pretty, pretty Flash site, preferring form over function. If you don’t want people to reach your site, why bother having one at all?
*Sure, there are ways to code Flash to make it more SEO friendly, but most coders don’t. And many search engines still don’t see it.
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