Is flash really that bad for SEO?

First of all, what is Flash? Flash is a tool that web developers use to add dynamic text and video to websites. According to Wikipedia, "Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to Web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements and games."

And according to many, Flash is SEO's kryptonite. Search engines cannot index flash content and by including valuable content in flash or by using flash introductions, you might as well kiss the search engines goodbye.

In 2008 Google and Adobe (the creator of Flash), announced that Flash is indexable by Google bots and is thus not (completely) bad for SEO.

But 2 years after that announcement, we still hear that Flash is bad for SEO. Why is that? Is Flash bad for SEO or not?!

Here's the definitive answer you've been wanting to hear: yes! ...and no!

Yes - Flash is Bad!
The changes that Google and Adobe made allow the text and links within Flash files (.swf extensions) to be indexed by Google's robots, but there are still a lot of limitations. Also, there is no guarantee that your Flash files will be created in a way that is indexable. Also, other popular search engines like Yahoo! and Bing are still unable to index flash files. (Though Yahoo! promises to fix this eventually).

No - Flash is Fine!
Flash really is fine if it is the right kind of Flash and is implemented correctly. Having a whole website made in Flash is probably still not a great idea, but if your Flash files are embedded in your webpages as complementary tools to the main body of your website, they're fine. For example, adding a Flash banner to your website is NOT going to hurt your SEO, especially if you make sure any text in the file is indexable by the search engines.

And just a reminder that Apple iPhones / iPads / iTouch's do not (and maybe never will) support Flash, but that's a whole other issue that we'll let Steve Jobs explain.

Oh, and did we mention that we just released new Flash banners for our ELITE real estate Websites? Check them out by taking a free, no obligation test drive! (And yes, they are search engine friendly. :-)