Why I Don’t Care That Googlebot Can Crawl Flash
While I do not claim to be an SEO guru, and am not a developer, I have been in this space long enough, and have enough web chops to know that the announcement made yesterday by Google and Adobe is not a step forward in the progression of the web. Here is why:
1. The “Because You Can” Syndrome Destroys Lives
a. Why do brand marketers and advertisers create experiences online?
- Well, sometimes it is to do commerce. Other times it is to create engaging platforms to immerse consumers, but neither of these reasons require a 5 minute flash intro to a brand site that has nothing to do with the core selling proposition for a given brand. All too often I run into people who do flashy things because they can- and not because they should.
b. Brand Marketers and Advertisers- read your bounce rates as they are the voices of consumers!
- I am not saying that pure flash environments inherently provide a poor user experience. What I am saying is that many who use Flash tend to exploit it to the point where usability it sacrificed. This is however something good taste can rectify
2. Open Standards Make The Whole World Sing
a. No one of us is as great as all of us (a good friend taught me that, you know who you are)!
- We have already seen what happens when standards are open. I hate anything that even remotely signifies a step away from open standards and the possibility for collaboration.
3. I Want To Keep The Dream Of The Semantic Web Alive
a. I long for the day when the World Wide Web is the World Wide Social Web. When things such as XFN, FOAF and Microformats are common place. I long for a day when the way our data is enclosed has meaning in it (in addition to the data itself). It seems that pure flash environments bring us further away from that dream
Tags: adobe, flash, Google, googlebot, Search Marketing For Marketers, SEM, seo
Jul 02, 2008
Can’t relate. Like it or not, many websites are in flash, and the fact that Google couldn’t see them without special measures being taken was obnoxious, both for the publishers and for users trying to find the sites by search.
Like any tool, flash can be abused. But every publisher has the right to present their content however they want. And this isn’t necessarily a step away from open standards. We’ll see whether Google makes a similar arrangement with Microsoft for Silverlight. If they do (and maybe even if they don’t), it’s just a matter of time before Google simply lays out a way for everyone to do this.
Jul 03, 2008
Michael
I do agree that publishers have a right to choose, but I don’t think Google was not crawling flash to be difficult (as they have been trying for a long time now).
My feeling is that they web is about interactivity- not just on site, but with the rest of the web. If a publisher wants to treat their space online as a walled garden, well for be it from me to stop them. The problem will arise for that publisher or brand, not me.
I guess my feelings of frustration come from the fact that now I am going to have more and more clients (or potential clients) wanting to work in a way that will make it so my team has to create band aids on monuments, instead of solid foundations.
Jul 07, 2008
Adam,
Why can’t you use Flash and SEO in harmony? No one said you have to build an entire site in Flash and there are technologies that allow Flash a deep link.
I think it is the responsibility of designers and developers to educate the client and let them know there are “right” and “wrong” ways to do things and that they can have a robust visual and interactive experience while still being optimized for search.
I have seen many a homepage (amex.com, coach.com) go from all Flash to AJAX and then back to a combo CSS/Flash site and I think this is the way to go to provide the best of all worlds.
Jul 07, 2008
Carl
Thanks for the comment!
Indeed you can use them in harmony. I was being intentionally provocative with this post in reaction to all of the buzz around something that I feel is just not that buzz worthy.
You are of course correct when you say,
“I think it is the responsibility of designers and developers to educate the client and let them know there are “right” and “wrong” ways to do things and that they can have a robust visual and interactive experience while still being optimized for search.”
but the fact is, most designers simply don’t do that
May 13, 2009
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