Links

1

I have just read the contents of a tutorial by Phil Jayhan on this site covering web site submission and I have yet to receive a definitive answer about how search engines and directories cope with full flash sites, as the links within such sites are embedded so to speak.

I have doubts whether the more popular search engines are able to crawl full flash sites to list links. As this is vital to good rankings, I wonder if anyone has a decent solution-maybe simply inserting html links in the html generated page would work?

2

I have a full flash site that shows up on search engines without any problems. What I used was meta tags.

3

Sure, but not every site uses meta tags and some regard them as utterly useless in this regard. I am specifically talking about engines such as google which analyses each site for links and then rates it appropriately. Links in flash sites are embedded, there are no links apparent in the html code. This is why I wondered whether simply inserting your flash links in plain html hyperlinks would work and trick the spider in to thinking that these are the links in your flash site.

??

The saga will continue

4

My site shows up on Google just fine, if it works for me then it should work for you as well.

5

ya, Ive read that many spiders dont pick up on the embedded links in swfs…apparently google claims that theirs are now able to discern links from within a flash movie…but I’ve also heard that claim is crap…but i have a read one good idea that would serve as a workaround.
I remember reading somewhere online (wish i had the link for you…) about using z levels and layers in your html page: basically you put all your links and the first 287 characters of ‘important text’ that the spiders use to rank your pages in one layer, making sure it all fits nicely under the dimensions of your swf. then put your swf directly over it, so it covers it. The spiders still pick up the links and text, but the user only sees the swf.
I haven’t tried this with any sites that are submitted to google or anything, so I cant say that it for sure works, but its really easy to do, and logically it makes sense.
One thing i can say about having sites come up well in engines is that it takes a while to see any results; ya gotta wait a coupla months before you see any improvements.
good luck =]

6

When you go to File/Publish and it publishes the html file check the source code of that HTML file.

There will be invisible tags that contain the text and such used within your movie. Some search engine spiders use this to get their data.

META tags aren’t useless yet either, so I recommend using them as well!

7

really lost? I have heard otherwise about the validity of metatags nowadays…too many peeps were including irrelevant info in the tags in the hopes of generating extra hits, an improving thier ranks on the engines… The metatags are not used at all anymore by most of the major search engines, the ranking is developed through traffic: links out, and links to, a specific page, and the amount of traffic that the site itself generates, and the traffic of the sites it is linked to and from… only inktomi still uses metatags.
read this:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2165061[URL=searchenginewatch article]
Anyways, this whole issue has also been on my mind for awhile, glad to see its finally being discussed here at kirupa. =] o ya, and i dont mean any disrespect by disagreeing, just wanna throw my pennies to the pot…you get a lot of conflicting info surrounding this issue, its hard to say whats for sure and whats hearsay.

8

I stil use META tags and they do still work very good. It is true their validity is being lessened by search engines, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t used anymore. The way I see it, they aren’t completely fazed out, so go for it… any little extra boost is worth it right?

9

ya, thats a good attitude to take, for sure…if it can’t hurt it can only help…and, the meta description is used when the site is listed in most search engines, so even if it doesn’t affect your rank placement directly, good meta tags would always generate more hits than none at all.
You’d think with so many flash sites on the net, the SE’s would rig up some way to index flash content…(static text and links anyways…) I know there are site rippers out there that do just that,(httpweazel) you’d think the SE’s would be all over these tools.
Sooner or later theyll get around to it, and all those html purists will have one less thing to argue with me about. =]

10

Yeah, perhaps in the future SEs will have the ability to index Flash sites better, my guess it that won’t be for a while as HTML sites are still leading (even if they are database driven, like PHP pages or ASP pages). It would be a good thing for them to figure a way to do it though :slight_smile:

11

I have thought about doing a similar thing. I’ve made most of the popup text boxes straight html so that if I can link them in html - the text will be searched.

Nevertheless I have used the meta tags and filled them up as far as one should, at least to the levels that Phil recommends. I know on my last site that was enough, but for this more recent one despite having been very careful not to oversubmit it and to put it in the right places for a couple of months - it’s still not being crawled.

I think if one can include links within one’s html, in addition to the flash, one should. I figured maybe the way to do this would be to use layers. The top one with the flash file on and one underneath with all of the pages that that flash file links to. I tried it but my html is a bit shakey in that department and I couldn’t get it to work.

If anyone has any ideas regarding this, I’d be interested to know what they thought.

12

Yep, I would be interested in your idea, my html is probably no better, no time as always.

Why can’t links be simply hard coded into the html, rather than being a part of the design layout of a site. I can’t see the problem. The se would be none the wiser, if it only checks the html.

Maybe in the head tag you could type:

<a href http://blah blah.com etc>

??

For further discussion see:

http://b2b.nbkayaking.com/viewtopic.php?t=3

13

You could also just make the layer with the html hidden by default. Wouldnt that work?

14

Flash is alway on top anyway so it should be fairly easy. Having said that I’m struggling with it.

I just want a little panel in the middle of the screen (hidden behind the flash site itself) which I can load some text onto and some links - so that the engines can see something in the HTML that reflects the metatags I already have at the top.

For some reason rather than layering it keeps pushing the site down sigh I don’t know, it’s getting a bit irritating. I should know this.

15

http://www.completeresults.com/archives/howimportant.html

lower part of that page is an article: ‘How to get flash indexed in the search engines’
It talks about the z level strategy i mentioned earlier in this thread. Unfortunately the final example link is busticated, but the general idea is there; just put your links/echoed text in beneath your swf, on a lower z level.
hope that helps

16

Ok, so I have read the articles and I have copied the html below for creating the z order.


<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<?
<html>
<head>
<title>Z-order Example</title>

<style type="text/css">
  <!--
       div.one     {position: absolute;
                    top: 20px;
                    left: 20px;
                    height: 50px;
                    width: 50px;
                    color: white;
                    background-color: blue;
                    z-index: 2;}
       div.two     {position: absolute;
                    top: 30px;
                    left: 30px;
                    height: 25px;
                    width: 100px;
                    background-color: orange;
                    z-index: 1;}
       div.three   {position: absolute;
                    top: 40px;
                    left: 40px;
                    height: 25px;
                    width: 25px;
                    background-color: yellow;
                    z-index: 3;}
  -->
</style>

</head>
<body>

<div class="one">This is section one.</div>

<div class="two">This is section two.</div>

<div class="three">This is section three.</div>

</body>
</html>

This creates three layers with text inside each layer.

My question is where to embed the flash movie inside the code.

What about inside <div class=“one”>flash movie here</div>

The link demonstrating the use of flash movies and z order did not work, as noted above. I’ll have a bash at it myself, but I’d love to see an example from someone a little more experienced in html and dhtml. Er LOST?

17

hey its really really really easy in DW… ijust did it lin like 5 seconds. Make a new layer in DW with the same dimensions as your flash movie. In this layer, type your text and links. Now make another layer. Use the properties winodow to size/move it over the first layer. set z level to something higher thatn the first text layer. Insert your flash movie into this layer…
youre done.

Here is the code… (note that the two layers are not the same size or perfectly hiding…i just did it real roughshod, to show the overlapping/hiding ability…)


<body>

<div id="Layer1" style="position:absolute; left:200px; top:51px; width:360px; height:289px; z-index:1">
  <p><a href="http://www.kirupa.com">kirupa</a></p>
  <p><a href="www.kirupaforum.com">kirupa</a></p>
  <p>text text text asdfkljasdfklajsdf;lkajsdf asdjsdf text textsdf;klassdf</p>
  <p>;lasd;flasasfl</p>
  <p>;asdfasdfasl;dkf;laskdf;lk sadl;fkasd;flk asdf;lk asdf;lka sdf;lksa df;lkasd 
    f;lksd df;lkasdf ;lskdf as;lfk sddf;lk sddf;lksdf;lksaddf;lksdf;lk sddf sdfksddfk 
    ffksdf;lk sdf;lk sdf;lksddf l;kdsf sd;flk </p>
</div>
<div id="Layer2" style="position:absolute; left:200px; top:60px; width:400px; height:340px; z-index:3"> 
  <div align="center">
    <object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0" width="300" height="200">
      <param name="movie" value="splash.swf">
      <param name="quality" value="high">
      <embed src="splash.swf" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="300" height="200"></embed></object>
  </div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
18

good job you just posted the code into this thread… hahaha

:thumb:

19

vbCode People… VBCODE!!! :trout: :stuck_out_tongue:

20

Yep - that works great.

In fact, if you just use one layer at z level, then the flash sits on top of it automatically. If your site is just centered in a borderless window that saves you having to align it again.

Thanks.:thumb: