SWFObject and Google.

[jlizarraga]

Hi all,

I was under the impression that Google's spiders didn't have Javascript enabled, since so many results from Google say "you must have Adobe Flash player to view this content", etc.

However, the SEO guy where I work is at Pubcon, and he says that he's learned that even when using SWObject and HTML parity in your alternative content, "the HTML is pretty much ignored because there is too much room here for someone to do something unscrupulous."

Does anyone know if this is true? Does Flash hurt your SEO even when using SWFObject?

Any responses appreciated!

[jscheuer1]

I think your SEO guy has overreacted, see:

http://groups.google.com/group/swfobject/browse_thread/thread/ad41ca3ddd9628c2

My reading is that as long as what you are doing is legit, and you also provide enough other content for Google to index your page, it will all work out.

And that problems (if any) arising from this new approach on the part of Google will be fixed soon.

[jlizarraga]

Thanks a ton, that link (and the Google blog link within that discussion) were extremely informative.

But ultimately it seems like Google is being pretty lame by pushing a far from perfect Flash algorithm on us without the option to instruct it to index the alternative content.

[jscheuer1]

You can always send Google some feed back. It may help. I'm sure they are getting lots of it on this, and that the issues that they view as predominant in that feedback will probably be addressed first.