URL Redirects for SEO (in Flash)?

Question

I am creating a flash site and am trying to make it SEO. I'm thinking a possible solution would be to render html to any search engine bot, or to anyone who needs accessibility, and rendering the flash site for the rest of the users.

First question is, is this acceptable for google, and SEO in general?

This would mean I would redirect urls to flash users from site.com/home.html to site.com/#/home only if they weren't a bot of some sort.

Second question is, is it possible to do this in javascript or rails?

I would do this by capturing the URL, checking to see who the user is (is it google, or is it a human), I'm just not sure how to do this with javascript/rails, whatever need be. Then once I found "hey this is google", I would return the html page; if it was a user, I'd return flash.

Would that work? Is there something better?

Answer 1

Its not doable in javascript, because javascript is executed after the page is sent, so the damage is already done.

Your webserver would have to recognize the google useragent when the page request is made, and serve a different page accordingly. Then you can avoid the whole redirect nonsense entirely. I know you can configure most webservers to do that, however I do not know the required steps, and it depends on what webserver you are using.

I'm not going to comment on the merits/demerits of flash based websites.

Answer 2

It'd be worth reading up on Google's policies toward cloaking, sneaky Javascript redirects, and doorway pages.

Personally, I'd build the site in HTML and use the Flash for progressive enhancement where appropriate.

Answer 3

This is a form of SEO called cloaking that's widely considered unscrupulous (though your intended use doesn't sound malicious to me). It can get you banned by Google.

Answer 4

Have you looked in to using SWFAddress?

Answer 5

The flash framework, Gaia, uses separate xhtml pages for it's SEO solution. From it's site:

"The Search Engine Optimization Scaffolding engine in Gaia creates an XHTML file for every page you specify in the site.xml, as well as a sitemap.xml file that follows sitemaps.org protocols.

The purpose of SEO Scaffolding is to provide search engines and non-Flash users with easy access to the content on your site, as well a convenient single data source for the copy on your site, organized by page.

This technique is white hat compliant, and is discussed on the Gaia forums."

More information here: http://www.gaiaflashframework.com/wiki/index.php?title=SEO