Skip to main content

Getting Search Engines to read Flash Content

Ok, so I lied. While Google supposedly now does index Flash content, what this article is really about is a quick a dirty way to get search engines to index your pages which contain Flash without having to display that content to the user in the HTML.

Basically this technique relies on swfobject (http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/). One thing swfobject does in dynamic mode is allows you to specify alternative content in a div for non flash users which gets switched out via JavaScript once the page loads:

    <script type="text/javascript">
    swfobject.embedSWF("myContent.swf", "myContent", "300", "120", "9.0.0");
    </script>

    <div id="myContent">
      <p>Alternative content</p>
    </div>

So basically you can duplicate the content which goes into the Flash app in the Alternative content section. Search engine spiders index HTML, but don't run JavaScript so are none the wiser that the user is actually going to see a Flash app.

The best case scenario is when the content in the Flash app is dynamic so you can easily duplicate it in the HTML. Static text needs to be manually copied. Most app related text will be instructional in any case and not really suited for search engines.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Master of my domain

Hi All, I just got myself a new domain ( http://www.skuunk.com ). The reason is that Blogspot.com is offering cheap domain via GoDaddy.com and I thought after having this nickname for nigh on 10 years it was time to buy the domain before someone else did (also I read somewhere that using blogspot.com in your domain is the equivalent of an aol.com or hotmail.com email address...shudder...). Of course I forgot that I would have to re-register my blog everywhere (which is taking ages) not to mention set up all my stats stuff again. *sigh*. It's a blogger's life... In any case, don't forget to bookmark the new address and to vote me up on Technorati !
Post a Comment
Read more

Freezing Gems

What is a gem and why would you want to freeze it? In Ruby, there are times when you want to access pieces of functionality that other people of written (3rd party libraries) and you normally have 2 options. You can install a plug in or install a gem. Normally the method you use is determined by which ever is made available by the author. Gems are installed on the host machine and are pretty handy when you want to run things in the command line or else across lots of projects, but their downside is that if you use a gem in a Rails project there is no automatic publishing mechanism when you deploy your site. You will need to log onto the remote host machine and install the gem manually. Plugins are specific to Rails and are similar to gems in that they are also 3rd party libraries. However they are associated with your Rails project as opposed to your machine so they will get posted to the server on a regular deploy. Freezing a gem is the process of transforming a gem into a plug in. Es...
22 comments
Read more

Responsive Web Design

I wanted to go over Responsive Web Design using CSS. In the old days of web development, we had to code to common screen sizes (i.e. 800 X 600, 1024 X 768) and we patiently waited for people to upgrade their computers to have a decent amount of screen real estate so we could design things the way we really wanted. We also took on semi stretchy web layouts etc to expand and contract appropriately. Then about 2 or 3 years ago, Apple released this little device called an iPhone with a 320 X 480 resolution which took the world by storm and suddenly a lot of people were viewing your website on a tiny screen again... Anyways, as it can be difficult to design a site which looks good on 320 X 480 AND 1680 X 1050, we need to come up with some kind of solution. One way is to sniff the client and then use an appropriate stylesheet, but then you are mixing CSS with either JavaScript or server side programming and also potentially maintaining a list of appropriate clients and stylesheets. Also, you...
13 comments
Read more