Flash Site Design - flash and Meta tags

Author

flash and Meta tags

macko

2004-04-21, 3:16 pm

I would like to know the proper way to create meta tags for a flash site that
will be picked up by the spiders of the search engines what i am trying out
right now is not working effectively!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

DiaMondBusteR2004

2004-04-21, 3:16 pm

I just finished my first 100% flash website and was wondering the same.

I read this information on an earlier post and I am tring it on my site.

Inside your body tags use the <NOSCRIPT></NOSCRIPT> with all your keywords
that you put in your <META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT=" ">

I am tring this and hope it does the job since making your clients website
highly searchable is a very big selling point!

My website I am referring is
[L=www.SeasideReptiles.com]http://home.comcast.net/~diamondbuster2004/seaside/in
dex.htm[/L]

Hope this helps

If anyone else has any other information Please Do Share!

This is very important to me!

Kathy

2004-04-21, 3:16 pm

Excerpt from FlashNewz newsletter dated 4/2/04

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Flash based web sites and the search engines
By: Stefan Mischook of Killersites.com

As with many of my articles and newsletters, this one is inspired by a
question put to me:

" Is it true that you should not have a flash web site since search
engines do not recognize flash? "

The short answer to the question is yes and no. :)

Search engines traditionally cannot see flash - but since Flash 4,
Macromedia (the guys who make Flash) built into Flash the capability to
be 'seen' by the engines. Today search engines like AlltheWeb.com, Lycos
and Google among others can index (see into) Flash movies, but only in a
limited way. As far as I can tell, the engines can only extract links
from the Flash movies and not much else. Compare this to an HTML page
where the search engine robots (the automated programs that search
engines use to surf and catalogue the web) can read everything about the
page and thus your web site will have a much better chance of appearing
in the search engines.

How to use Flash and make the search engines happy
It is best to combine both HTML and Flash on the same web page to cover
your bases. Flash is best at creating interactive presentations,
handling video and displaying animations. HTML still renders text better
than Flash, as such it is my opinion that if your web sites' job is to
present information that will just be read by your visitors (ex: our
company does x-y-z), I would then stick to HTML. In the end content is
king; an animation is not going to keep them coming back, good content will!

If your not convinced, check out www.macromedia.com , even they combine
HTML and Flash on their own pages.

About the Author:
This week's article was written by Stefan Mischook of Killersites.com.
KillerSites.com, the official website to David Siegels book 'Creating
Killer Web Sites'*. In addition to the classic web site, killersites.com
now has a web site designers forum, newsletter and many new articles!
Killersites.com is now more than ever, a web designers resource on
creating web sites and database driven web applications.

macko wrote:
> I would like to know the proper way to create meta tags for a flash site that
> will be picked up by the spiders of the search engines what i am trying out
> right now is not working effectively!
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>

cVarz

2004-04-21, 3:16 pm

I am wondering if browsers also pick up  as well as
content, text ect... If so, maybe you could list key elements in comments on
your index page for the crawlers to pick up?

Another idea, was to link each page to a blank html page with the keywords
etc.... in those blank pages for search engines to pick up?

For example a 2px virtual include header that contains all of the tags for
your web site?
Just an idea. I am kinda pull'n stuff out of my a.... here so take this info
with a grain of salt.

Sgt_Bolt

2004-04-23, 4:30 am

There are plenty of places out there that will create meta tags for you ..for
instance go to google type in meta tag generator and bing bota bing lots of
sites will appear offering you help on meta tags...
when I create my flash swf files and export them to the web as hmtl files wiht
swf. open them up in my html editor and type in all kinds of information about
my website ..the kicker is no one can see the text it is hidden but its in the
html >p< I simply change the color of the text to match the background so
visiters can see the flash presentation not the text..but the search engines
can read the text and that is the important part.you get the best of 2
worlds..go to a flash website right click on it somewhere were it will let you
that is and view source files a html window will pop up and you can see the
html layout of that site..check it it out it mite help you ...good luck..(not
all sites will let you view the source)

Kathy

2004-04-23, 5:33 pm

I wouldn't recommend this practice for these reasons quoted from
seohandbook.com:

*****************************************************

By using invisible text, unscrupulous webmasters can repeat keywords
multiple times and thus gain favorable search engine positioning because
of the high keyword density on the page.

However, because it is a practice deemed "illegal" by the Google search
engine, the use of invisible text to spam search engines should be
reported, and webmasters should avoid the practice at all times.

Avoiding invisible text is especially important because the spam filters
of the Google algorithm are being constantly modified and updated to
eliminate spam.

If you use spam on your website, you are likely to be caught and may be
banned from the Google index.

As the Google search engine says, "Avoid hidden text or hidden links."

*****************************************************

Sgt_Bolt wrote:
> There are plenty of places out there that will create meta tags for you ..for
> instance go to google type in meta tag generator and bing bota bing lots of
> sites will appear offering you help on meta tags...
> when I create my flash swf files and export them to the web as hmtl files wiht
> swf. open them up in my html editor and type in all kinds of information about
> my website ..the kicker is no one can see the text it is hidden but its in the
> html >p< I simply change the color of the text to match the background so
> visiters can see the flash presentation not the text..but the search engines
> can read the text and that is the important part.you get the best of 2
> worlds..go to a flash website right click on it somewhere were it will let you
> that is and view source files a html window will pop up and you can see the
> html layout of that site..check it it out it mite help you ...good luck..(not
> all sites will let you view the source)
>

Sgt_Bolt

2004-04-30, 5:33 pm

Hmm Me thinks your calling me a spammer. and un scrupulous ..not true... only
text on the site is information concerning my site stuff you want search
engines to find now whats wrong with that ..im sure the ones your talking about
are out there but its not I... So even though you may be right in some sense of
the word I do resent you assuming that I am one of the bad guys...

."HTML still renders text better than Flash, as such it is my opinion that if
your web sites' job is to
present information that will just be read by your visitors "

This is your own quott whats the difference between seen and unseen text if
it gets your site information out there..

Kathy

2004-04-30, 5:33 pm

I didn't call you anything....as mentioned in my post, I simply provided
information based on a search engine positioning website which quotes
Google's tos. The practice of invisible text is deemed "illegal" by the
Google search engine.

You suggested use of invisible text to marko's question: "What is the
proper way to create meta tags for a Flash site that will be picked up
by spiders of search engines." Considering marko asked for proper
usage, I would think he would be interested in Googles position on use
of invisible text. Whether he or you use it makes no difference to
me....I'm not the SEP police.

If you want to read up on it yourself, go here and scroll down to
"Search Engine Spam - What to Avoid" http://www.seohandbook.com/seohSite/

Google's Webmaster Guidelines:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/gu...es.html#quality

Kat