Search Engine Optimization for Flash: Best Practices for Using Flash on the Web

There is something special about a Flash website. I don't mean a site that has a Flash header or gallery slide show. I mean a website made totally with Flash such as the beautiful site created by Lightmaker for the author of the Harry Potter books, JK Rowling. Her site is an "experience" due to the interactive elements but still manages to get the information to the viewer. Many people shy away from a site created totally in Flash because of the problems search engines had in the past when indexing a Flash site. Well, things have improved over the last few years and this book, Search Engine Optimization for Flash by Todd Perkins, dispels these old notions and teaches you the new methods to optimize your Flash site. When Perkins talks about SEO, he considers the techniques used to optimize a non-Flash website as important to optimizing a Flash website as Flash SEO techniques. Therefore, this book has a dual purpose. It not only teaches SEO for Flash but for non-Flash sites as well. Perkins starts with an overview of what you need to know to get the most from the techniques in his book and how the major search engines Google and Yahoo index websites. Next, he discusses how to optimize the non-Flash aspects of your site with proven techniques such as XML sitemaps and web standards for the separation of content and presentation with CSS and XHTML. He also covers the most common pitfalls such as too much JavaScript or dynamic text and how to correct these mistakes. The reader then completes an exercise for creating a simple SEO site. Moving on to Flash specific SEO, he discusses each Flash SEO technique in depth, including sample code. He follows each discussion with practical exercises. He discusses techniques such as how to use SWF and XMP metadata and the importance of HTML in Flash to increase your SEO. He also covers Flash SEO JavaScript including flashvars, SWFObjects and SWFAddress deep linking. After installing a test server, you learn about dynamic Flash applications and related SEO challenges. He then moves into the Flex framework SEO and how it relates to Flash SEO. He discusses when and where to apply the same techniques you have learn for Flash to your Flex applications. Finally, he uses two sample websites to teach ways to evaluate and improve Flash SEO. Todd Perkins is a web developer and consultant. As a Certified Flash Instructor, he has authored three books on Flash and many hours of video training.