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Using Flash
Flash animation is not easily optimized for the search engines.  It is difficult (and in some cases impossible) for the search engines to extract keywords from Flash files.  However, keywords are one of the most important ways that search engines decide the topic of your web pages.  This means that if your site relies too heavily on Flash technology it will be hard for the search engines to determine the topic of your web pages thus making it harder for your site to rank well.  Furthermore, even if your site doesn’t rely too much on Flash, in general any part of your web page which uses Flash will generally not contribute to your ranking. 

With that said, if you want to or for some reason need to use Flash, here are a couple of rules that you should follow:

1. Make sure that you have ample indexable content in addition to your Flash file.
   If only part of your page is a Flash file and the rest is regular HTML code which contains your keywords then the search engines will be able to determine the topic of your page by accessing and processing that HTML code.  But, if most of your page is one large Flash file then the search engines are going to have a hard time deciphering the topic of your page, thus hurting your ability to rank that page well in the search engines.
    
2. Use the <noembed> tag.
   If, for whatever reason, you need to create one large Flash page then you can create an HTML version of that page which you can place in the <noembed> tag (as opposed to the link to your Flash file which has to be enclosed in an <embed> tag).  Creating this HTML version of your page simultaneously gives the search engines something to process while providing an alternative version for those visitors who have not installed Flash on their computers.

Exceptions to the rule?
It is true that Google has made great strides in terms of indexing Flash pages, but even so, they still don’t process Flash pages as well as normal HTML pages.  It is also true that there are popular sites which rank well in the search engines that use heavy amounts of Flash technology on their site (such as Oprah.com).  However, these sites often times have the advantage of name recognition and significant financial backing which allows them to overcome the disadvantages of using Flash.  Most sites, though, do not have these advantages and thus are not able to easily overcome the disadvantages of over-relying on Flash animation on their site.  Finally, it is also true that there are ways to work-around these problems (as we mentioned above), but that fact doesn’t take away from the inherent difficulty in using Flash technology.  Remember, you have a limited amount of time and resources at your disposal and you need to ask yourself whether or not you want to spend those resources making up for the inherent ranking disadvantages of using Flash technology. 

The bottom line is that Flash pages are more difficult to optimize for the search engines.  It is simply harder for them to rank well.  However, harder doesn’t mean impossible.  So, if you feel that you need to have Flash animation on your site, just make sure that you follow the steps outlined above to help give your web pages a fighting chance to rank well.

How to Use Remote Javascript to Make Your Pages More Search Engine Friendly
In general, it is a good idea to limit the amount of non-indexable text that you include on your web pages.  One such example of a non-indexable text is JavaScript.  Whenever a search engine spider encounters a web page with JavaScript the spider has to pass over this script in order to find the regular HTML code that it indexes.  This is not an efficient use of the search engines spiders time and may limit the amount of indexable text that the search engine spider processes. 

As such, if your web pages do have a lot of JavaScript in them then you may want to consider using a remote file to help make it easier for the search engines to process your web pages.  Here’s all that you have to do:

1. On your web page (i.e., the .html page that you are trying to optimize) add the following script:  <script language="JavaScript" src="javascript/remotefile.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    
2. Place your JavaScript code in the remote file (i.e., remotefile.js)

Note:  Your remote file need not be called "remotefile", although the extension has to be .js.

If you have to use frames, here’s what you do…
The main rule of thumb concerning frames is don’t use it!  Frames pages are hard to link to and can present "weird" results in the search engines (such as pages that your visitors can’t navigate).  In other words, frames make it harder for you to rank well in the search engines (because it is harder for your site to get links and simultaneously decreases the value of showing up in the search engines (given that only part of your page is shown in the search engine results).  It seems a no-brainer that if at all possible you should avoid frames.

If, for whatever reason, you have to use frames then you should optimize and send the <no frames> section of the page you want indexed to the search engines and the frames content to the browser (i.e., to your actual visitors/customers).
 

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This tutorial written by:
Moshe Morris
President of SEMBasics
Chief Research Analyst at Internet Marketing Initiative (www.internetmi.com)

The content on this page is based off of an article published in SearchEngineNews.com.
To learn more about Search Engine News, click here.