So the other day I had an interesting conversation with Parker Garlitz of Patrick Henry & Associates, a noted Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert and 2-time Dungeons & Dragons champion. The discussion was something like this –
“The best thing you can do for www.directpointe.com is take off all Flash from your site. This is going to sound crazy but you need to ‘uglify’ your site to get people to conversion.” Patrick said. “Flash is the worst thing you can do to your site if you want search engines to find it.”
He was very adamant about the fact that Macromedia Flash can not be crawled by search engines. Because I challenged him on this fact, he said tell me one site that uses Flash extensively and ranks on search engines.
So, I decided to take him up on the offer. Here are my findings.
I searched out what the most searched keywords are. I went with the results from Google, Yahoo, and AOL. I typed these into the search engines and this is what I came up with. This list was gathered on 8/22/06.
Websites that show up on page one of Google and use Flash extensively.
Search Term – Sports
www.ESPN.com
msn.foxsports.com
Search Term – Tour de France
www.bicycling.com
Search Term – World Cup
www.fifa.com
Search Term – Talk Show
tyrashow.warnerbros.com
Search Term – NASCAR
msn.foxsports.com/nascar
Search Term – Computer
www.gateway.com
Search Term – Music
www.mtv.com
Search Term – News
www.usatoday.com
Search Term – NFL
sports.espn.go.com/nfl/index
msn.foxsports.com/nfl
sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/nfl/specials/preview/2006
Search Term – Pizza
www.pizzahut.com
www.dominos.com
www.cpk.com
Other notable sites that use Flash extensively
Even Walmart has gotten into the act.
Most car manufacturer, fashion designers, sports teams, movie websites, airlines, computer makers, cell phone companies, universities, governments, etc… etc…. etc… use Macromedia Flash extensively. That seems like a lot of smart people to me. There must be a reason for using Flash to get people to conversion. The fact is that Flash can be crawled and flash elements can be effective. The days of Flash being invisible to Google and the gang are over.
Stay tuned for the next blog on how to Optimize Flash the right way for SEO and the results of making www.DirectPointe.com compelling, effective, viral, and searchable.
Hey wat scipt are you using to run this blog ? its cool
Here is my opinion:
There are dozens of different types of websites out there. Portals, news sites, PR sites, game sites, training sites, corporate sites, info sites, etc… Flash is a fantastic technology that adds alot to a user experience on these types of sites, which represent the vast majority of sites on the web.
However, for a small minority of sites, Direct Response sites… I.E. sites marketing a product or service and asking for a fast user action like downloading a trial, requesting more info or making a retail purchase, flash in my experience is not good for conversion rates.
Conversion Rate = the % of visitors that convert into a success event (lead, download, etc…).
The reason I believe that Flash most often hurts conversion rates is that it is employed in the same way it is deployed on other non-direct response site. Which is to say it is overdone, and gets in the way of the core message and call to action. In other words, cool flash implementation that is good for almost all websites, actually can hurt (and most often does hurt) direct response sites if implemented in the same way. On a direct response site flash should be used sparingly, judiciously, and usually shown at the user’s option if they need more info.
Take for example a site you referenced in your original post.
http://www.bpnordstrom.com/home.asp
You will note that this is Nordstrom’s Corporate Site, and is all Flash. Totally appropriate given the type of site that it is. The focus here is PR & Branding. There is no direct response. However, if you go to their online store (a direct response marketing site) flash is used VERY sparingly.
shop.nordstrom.com
You will find the same thing to be generally true of great ecommerce sites on the web. Flash is used very sparingly or not at all. Amazon, Overstock, eBay, etc… When flash is used, it is almost always used to promote a specific offer.
I am guessing that Nordstrom has thoroughly tested the use of heavy flash on their shopping site, and found the same thing that i have seen time after time. Flash can get in the way of the sale on a direct response site.
Please don’t take my comments as disparaging of Flash. They aren’t. For the overwhelming majority of sites on the web, flash is great. For a small minority… the direct response sites, flash can hurt more often than not. It can be helpful, but every site is a unique case, and the only way to find out if flash helps or hurts a site is through extensive multivariate testing that tracks conversion rate variations for every iteration and combination of messaging, calls to action, incentives, benefit/feature balance, case studies, testimonials, flash & more.
Said another way: Flash is a great ingredient for most sites, but it doesn’t fit with all sites. Mustard is great on hotdogs. Not so good on chocolate cake.
Parker
Parker,
Thanks for the post. So, if I understand you right, using Flash can help conversion if used correctly. I guess we should define what conversion is so that we are all on the same page.
Thanks,
Curtis J. Morley
Curtis,
Your memory of our discussion is not accurate. The flash recommendation we made related purely to conversion rate issues. Not SEO. From an SEO standpoint, flash is a little problematic, but can be handled.
From a conversion rate standpoint, my opinion is that flash, if overused, can and often does hurt conversion. Flash, if used judiciously can help conversion. Every case is unique, and the only way to findout what works best for conversion rate optimization is to actually test variables and compare results. We recommended removal of flash as a starting point to compare the baseline conversion rate of the site with flash to the site without flash.
Just my nickles worth. Hope everything is going well for you.
Parker
Great comment Andy. That chart made me laugh out loud.
I am on a mission to prove the validity of Flash in a Search Engine frenzied world. The techniques Rob Taylor and Tyler Wright presented at Flash Forward are absoluely brilliant. These ideas combined with some others will prove once and for all that Flash is perfectly valid as \”Google Food.\”
Derek has some great suggestions above as well.
These sites are examples of sites that do not need SEO. Search engines did not find these sites through their content. They found them because they are hugely popular IN SPITE of their flash content and because they have copious amounts of links to them. They don’t rely on SEO so they might as well use flash.
If you are a business that depends on SEO the following flow chart might help to know whether to use all flash content or not:
http://www.thegooglecache.com/?p=46
This article talks about cloaking and specifically talks about it in the case of flash and video content as an ethical method of cloaking..
http://www.ihategoogle.org/?postid=508
Thanks for the comment Derek. Great to hear from you.
I like the blog, and im interested in what you have to say about flash and seo.
Some ideas might by:
Show Html pages to search engine spiders by looking at the referrer, you could make an automated framework for this and many forums employ this tactic to get un search engine friendly pages crawled. They remove page rank drains and leave a barebones text / links page.
Use search engine friendly urls for sections and navigation.. this could be a search engine spider only thing where you convert your navigation and articles to:
http://www.yoururl.com/how-to-throw-a-baseball.html
and http://www.yoururl.com/articles.html or /contactus.html
Automatically add Meta-descriptions and make sure all urls are ONLY accessable and referenced by the long hand url /throw-a-baseball.html as opposed to /?p=3
create permalinks to various sections of your site and make them available in the flash interface so people can deep link your sections easily “kinda google maps style” and they can get crawled
automatic sitemap generation xml and html.. this would be more inline with a content management system for flash.
In fact all these things would be way easier to accomplish through a cms designed to render flash or a barebones search engine version.