5 replies to this topic

[Craig B]

Hello,

I realize that this has been discussed here but I wanted to come at it from a different angle...

We have a client that has a flashed based website. We have been coming up with solutions to get better rankings and to provide better website usability. The first solution concerns usability but has SE implications.

1. When a user enters the site, I use a javascript 'sniffer' to detect if a user has Flash. If they do, the flash piece is embedded normally; if not, a seamless hidden layer is substituted for the flash. (I attached the code for anyone interested in how to do this) Is this a problem as the hidden layer is still spiderable but not visible to most users as most users have the flash plugin?

2. We want the flash piece to have most of the attention on the page but we would also like to add some HTML content to give it a better chance for higher rankings. We came up with an idea of using DHTML layers to provide '+more' when a user presses the button. For example-

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Curabitur quis sem nec diam volutpat viverra. Maecenas risus. Morbi fringilla pellentesque ipsum. +press here for more

Again, we are hiding text from users who don't click on the more button.

Any comments/suggestions would be most appreciated. thanks!

Attached Files

•  hidden_layer.txt   3.35K   55 downloads

[Jill]

I would say that it's probably not considered spamming because you're providing good content for those who don't have Flash installed.

You do have to be careful with layers, however, because they can be used to trick the engines, so they may be actively looking at sites that uses these types of techniques.

Jill

[jvanv8]

DIV under flash - yes, its fine and it will be spidered

Some content in HTML using layers - well that depends...
If you were thinking about using a layer to appear OVER the flash movie, it will not work. You can set the "publish" settings to transparent will make the background of the flash movie trasparent so that layers underneith will be visible... however, it only works in IE not netscape.

Also note that Flash movies go to the top of all layers. If you put Flash on z-index=1, and your HTML layer on z-index:20, Flash will be on top. Strange but true.

The only option I see is to break your Flash movie up... for example break it into 4 pieces - 3 pieces are swfs that load into 3 flash layers. The 4th layer will be for text display in HTML. You could also use Frames also for the HTML layer.

John

[Mel]

Why not just use the noembed tag, which will provide users without Flash (including spiders) the noembed content?

[Tenyque]

It seems like spam, since either if the users have flash or do not the text will still be hidden and is therefore only there for the search engines. Perhaps add a bit more javascript to manipulate the CSS and make the text visible when flash isn't detected. Or, as Mel pointed out, use the noembed tag. This situation is exactly what it was created for.

Any which way you resolve this, the text should reflect the contents of the Flash animation to further avoid a spam label.

[jvanv8]

Tenyque -
I think you misuderstood.

NO div tags (layers) in my example are "invisible"

One is merely on top of another. If flash does not load, the nothing resides in the "Flash Layer" (therefore it's transparent) and the user can now see through the empy flash layer to see the text.
Note that you can set the visiblity of a layer to "false" - making it "hidden" - but if layers are placed on top of each other, you can set all the layers to "visible". If you use a white background for the top div, the user will not be able to see the underlying layers. If you do not specify a background, you will see a complete mess of text, layed over text, layed over text...

Until text readers and search engine spiders can parse swf files, this is really the only option. If you think this is SPAM, please tell that to our personal friends who are blind and use text readers such as JAWS and Speak Freely to browse the internet. This gives the text readers something to work with (describing the site etc) and the link to the html version of the page for more info where the text reader will be able to speak the entire site.

- John