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May 01.2008

Hi,
My website is done purely in flash.. my problem is SE ranking.. could someone advice me on how exactly to add meta-tags to my flash website..
Of what I have read so far I should add these meta-tags to my index.html page? Will this be enough, or did i miss out on something? Should that be the way to do it, do I need to do it in a certain area of my index.html, or just at the end? and if possible could someone give me the code I need?

I also heard something about sites being banned for using techniques like meta-tags, did i mis-read, or what was meant by the that?

Thank you very much for any help I can get!

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@KorMay 01.2008 — SE will consider metatags content specifications only if they are related with the page's text content. But if your site is entirely build in Flash, SE will ignore it, as there will be no HTML text to compare with

A pure flash site is a bad idea, anyway. Flash itself has lost the impact after the Flash banners invasion. Flash-blocker application are now in common use, so that for instance, a Flash navigation menu is extremely annoying for those who have a Flash blocker, as they need to click all the time to see the Flash. If they want to. Usually I don't, and I quit any pure Flash build site the very next second.
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@mauriceamadeusauthorMay 01.2008 — thanks for the advice, but the website is already finished, and it turned out very nice, and it wasn't an easy process, and the people who are looking for websites in this specific field ( of murals) will not assume block the content like they would on a porn website...

So what I still need to know is weather meta tags will work if they do correspond to the websites content (so it would be artists name, company name, techniques of drawing, etc..).

And im still not quite sure how to create them...

as always, any help is very welcome! you guys can really help me out here!
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@CentauriMay 01.2008 — As Kor was pointing out, if the entire site is flash, then [B]there is no content[/B] as far as html goes - a search engine cannot look inside a flash file to determine content. No discernable content = meta tags ignored.
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@mauriceamadeusauthorMay 01.2008 — i dont understand, im pretty sure i've read that you can add meta tags in the index.html file of my site... even though the site is done in flash, it still has an index.html to point it towards my swf... so apperantly I can add the meta tags along with the rest of the script in the index.html...?
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@WebJoelMay 01.2008 — META-data mismatch: if you use a META tag in your HTML and your HTML contains [I]only[/I] FLASH content, this constitutes "mismatch" and is parity to feigned META, thus, Google (at least) will abort any attempt to index ("read"), and move on.

This was the problem 10+ years ago, -unscrupulous web masters would stuff their META-data tags with 'stuff' (keywords) that people might legitimately seek (like, 'university courses online' + 'in my home state') and if these tags were in the uncrupulous site (lets say that it's a porn/gambling/Rx site), you the searcher would land upon [I]THEIR[/I] page instead of any page that legitimately offered "university courses online" and 'in your home state'.

One of my favorite experiences was when I was doing research on "Amercian Indian weapons, arrowheads, stone axes, clovis points and spears" and the first 50-pages I'd land on, were teeny-bop [B]Britney Spears[/B] and [B]Spice Girls[/B] pages!! Didn't make any sence... until one examined the META tags and other 'bad' content sneaked into the page...

So Google caught on and they created new, tougher rules that seeks to 'match up' your targeted keywords with [I]actual[/I] keywords used in your content. FLASH = "no keywords", ergo, META tags on a FLASH site = mismatch..

Myself, sure, -you wanna use FLASH and assume that [I]I[/I], your target audience [I]also[/I] has FLASH, -then create a FLASH-less page that I can use with link to it, and SEO that. ? A (sic!) 'splash page' that provides me the end user with the option of FLASH or non-FLASH, is better.
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@mauriceamadeusauthorMay 02.2008 — ahh, hehe, finally some explenation! thanks a lot! I guess i will have to create a dummy website....

i cant make the website in html as i dont know any html.. so it would look very unprofessional.. if i used a forward from a different url, would the content of this url actualy be seen, or would it redirect to my main site anyways? before any content loads into the browser window?
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@KorMay 02.2008 — Nor the redirect will solve the problem. The Google masters thought about that as well, and decided that any page which has a redirect metatag (or even a javascript redirect code, as I've heard) is not trusty, thus it will still consider your site as a "mismatch"...

You may try using a div, CSS displayed none, with some HTML plain text, but I don't guarantee that the Google boyz'n'girlz did not consider that variant as well, so your site will remain un-indexed by the SE.


...so it would look very unprofessional
[/quote]
I am sorry to say that, but in fact [i]building a full Flash site[/i] is unprofessional...
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@mauriceamadeusauthorMay 02.2008 — you completely twisted my last post with your quote!

I mean thanks for helping, but why am i "being attacked" for asking about meta tags....

what i said is that "I DONT KNOW HTML SO IT WOULD LOOK VERY UNPROFESSIONAL"...

So thanks for the help I did recieve in this thread, but no thanks to pointless comments, which are not helpfull at all...:eek:
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@KorMay 02.2008 — I apologize if you feel I might have been rude. Sorry for that. But when I see a mistake I can not say it is a masterpiece, can i? ?

what i said is that "I DONT KNOW HTML SO IT WOULD LOOK VERY UNPROFESSIONAL"
[/quote]
I could also be amazed that you started to make web pages [I]without knowing HTML[/I] (neither probably CSS nor javascript). Sounds that professional to you? ?

Ok, try with that hidden div I have told you in which you can write a resume of your site's content and cross your fingers for a SE indexing.
<i>
</i>&lt;div style="display:none"&gt;
... text here ...
&lt;/div&gt;

Good luck ?
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@mauriceamadeusauthorMay 02.2008 — Thanks Kor, I reall appreciate it.. I was a little frustrated today due to multiple website issues that need solving.. lol.. i guess i had to blow some steam... I dont know any html nor CSS or javascript... appart from what I could scratch together from peoples help on flashkit hehe... but im proud of the result, and feel that flash is still a great way, definitely not ideal, but best for people like me (I know no scripitng hehe, so i guess im only on the visual side of things)

check it out if you want;

www.frescomaster.eu
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@gbonnetMay 02.2008 — Hi mauriceamadeus,

Something you may want to have a look is :

<noembed> Text for SE </noembed>

Basically, noembed tags allow you adding text which will be seen to SE only, the aim is to let SE know the text which is inside the animation. These tags are obsolete according to W3C so it is not such a good practise but that will help you a lot!

I used them already on a site which had a lot of flash and only a short text and the effect on SE ranking was great. Do not do too much though !!! I mean do not copy paste a very large amount of text, just add relevant info, otherwise, you may get blacklisted!

Do a quick google search about noembed tags, so you have more info.

Meta tags won't do much ... they are not used anymore to set rankings ...

HTH

G.
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@WebJoelMay 02.2008 — It actually wouldn't be that difficult to add *at least some* HTML in the form of semantic h-tags over the FLASH, to identify them. And some good ol' basic HTML text maybe, explaining the mission of the page, some contact and navigation stuff, etc. Just something to 'sketch out' how your site would look to someone visiting whom has no FLASH. Think [I]newspaper[/I] title-headers, -but no '[I]story[/I]'. That at least [I]suggests[/I] what would appear where.

Myself, -I'd look upon this as a unique challenge and find it quite enjoyable to try.

You know, -there ARE many places that sell FLASH-only templates for building your web pages. Point is, -you're not the first nor are you alone. It is the multitude of user-agents that keep coming out (palm devices, cell-phone w/ internet, blackberry, etc etc) that don't support certain technologies, that make FLASH-[I]only[/I] a bit remiss. I mean, -even the ADOBE site uses FLASH rather sparingly... they [I]WANT[/I] their site to be found on the 'net. ?

Interestingly enough, 'part II' of the college courses I took for eCOMM include FLASH, and DREAMWEAVER and excepting the FLASH & DREAMWEAVER forums here, you'll read alot of bashing of these two! :eek: But, they DO have marketshare and they DO get used..
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@mauriceamadeusauthorMay 02.2008 — Yeah I agree with pretty much all of you guys now... I just never found the time and motivation to get into html...

what im going to do now, in theory, is put an html page infront of my flash site.. this page will basically have the company name, a small explicatory text, and a notice that flash is required...

I'm going to have to admit, once again, that I have no idea how I will actualy do it, im going to try to list the steps I would have to take, so if you guys have a bit of time to read them, let me know if it will work:

-take a random text editing software/dreamweaver to write the script in...

-write the heading,

-perhaps add a picture,

-center all of that with dreamweaver

-add an html button script, perhaps it would be the entire page, if that is clicked it will link to my "mainhome.swf"

as a nubie question, can I actually do this in dreamweaver, by doing

new html document

and then writting what I want in the <body> section?

what I dont understand, I tried to add a text in dreamweaver, underneath my .swf. It sais, in german, "If the website does not appear, this means you do not have flash player, please follow the active-x link which will appear shortly"

I added this by just using the text tool in the "Design" area of dreamweaver.. it is even in the sourcecode/index.html... of the uploaded website.. but it just isnt displayed, unless it has the exact same color as the background color...

ohh god, well you guys see how much trouble im having understanding scripting.. lol
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