Originally Posted by
ultrafunkula 
If I google "mp3 downloads" or "buy mp3" or anything like that, i don't see beatport, juno (which is not flash) or your gospel music site.
As for the results. This small site has only one page and one swf but i can see it in google just the same -
See here
or this other flash page: bigtunes
If these sites had 50 pages or so, I'm sure they would all appear as well.
Thats really quite funny. What we are talking about is search results for relevant content. It is true that Google will index the HTML container for a full Flash site, but that is as far as it can go - title tag and description tag (perhaps). Their actual *content* will never be indexed. Both your searches are for site:my_site.com which will naturally bring up the *one or two* search results for whatever is in title tags on the sites.
Originally Posted by
ultrafunkula
beatport and juno have a great reputation among dj's and music freaks. I assume he mentioned those 2 because he's into music. You did something for Hi Bias which is a label that I know from way back when, I have records from that label. I believe Hi Bias will prevail because of their reputation, not because they don't use flash.
So clearly you agree that Beatport's online success is in no way connected to being indexed by Google (because their content never can be).
You say that Hibias "will prevail because of their reputation", however I can tell you for a fact that last year was almost a total loss to Hibias in regard to online sales - the reason? A developer (not us) introduced an error that prevented Google from indexing the site for most of the year and sales fell through the floor (they were not to be found on Google AT ALL). We corrected that error and the site was fully indexed within a week and sales returned to normal. So, you are quite wrong.
Originally Posted by
ultrafunkula
The point is dj's and music freaks know where to get their stuff. Beatport started with aquaviva and hawtin, 2 very known dj's. That alone played a huge role in their popularity, plus the fact that they were pretty much the first to allow indies to sell online. Now they are huge and have set a new standard. The Hi Bias site is ok, but as far as I know, Release Records is pretty much THE online retailer in the canadian realm. Mainly because their retail store has a great reputation they carry the latest and hottest tracks. The site isn't beautiful or fancy like beatport, but they have what matters most in the music retail biz. the hottest and latest tracks in the genres the specialize in.
Again you are a little off track. Hibias are an independent label that sell only their own material, so its not relevant to compare to a site that sells everything. Hibias has very good search results for *its own content*. Beatport's success is due to both their marketing strategy and reputation - on this we at least half agree.
Searches for "mp3 downloads" or "buy mp3" are not really relevant, since most people will search for the actual CONTENT - artist name and song/album title. Such content can never be indexed from a Flash application. Lets just do some random tests to show how "bad" our search results are:
Holyculture-1 - #1 ranked search result
Holyculture-2 - #3 ranked search result
Holyculture-3 - #2 ranked search result
Hibias-1 - # 2 ranked search result
Hibias-2 - #2 ranked search result
Hibias-3 - #1 ranked search result
Originally Posted by
ultrafunkula
Anyway, I'm drifting away from the point 
.
The gospel site, I dunno, It doesn't have the look and feel of a music store. Hi Bias will surely do well regardless of what type of cart they're using. I'm still not convinced..
Funny again. Both Hibias (one of our very old sites) and Holyculture will both soon be redeveloped to our latest technologies. Holyculture have specifically requested that we retain the current look of their site, so whether you like it or not is just a matter of opinion. They are both doing quite nicely due to their high search rankings.
Matti Ressler
Suomedia
