Member Avatar for Matty J

knowing that search bots don't recognize text in graphical format, thus rendering flash websites virtually invisible to search engines, would it be possible, using CSS to basicly make 2 websites per page, one visible Flash page and 1 hidden page behind it?

(sorry about the run-on sentence)

by using (z-index and visible: false; ) tags to manipulate the page by putting the Flash site in front of an invisible webpage, with an appropriate amount of <h> tags and contain enough applicable key words and links to basically be a search engine friendly version of the same website. or by making the text invisible in the CSS, does it also affect how it is intrepreted by bots?

thanx,

matty

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The “two-sites‑in‑one” idea raised by (Flash UI on top, crawlable HTML hidden underneath) is technically possible but risky: hiding keyword‑rich HTML with CSS or layering it off‑screen looks like hidden text/cloaking to search engines and is explicitly listed as abusive in Google’s spam policies. ’s steer toward providing real fallback content is safer because the browser/HTML spec expects fallback content for embedded objects. (developers.google.com)

A bit of history and why it matters today: Google improved its ability to extract visible text and links from SWF files (2008–2009), so some Flash text could be discovered, but that capability had limits (Flash loaded via certain JavaScript techniques or from external resources could be missed). More importantly, Adobe retired Flash (EOL Dec 31, 2020) and major browsers block the plugin — relying on Flash now hurts both user access and long‑term discoverability. (developers.google.com)

Practical, low‑risk approaches (ordered by preference):

  • Migrate interactive pieces to HTML5/CSS/JS (Canvas/WebGL) — the long‑term solution.

  • If migration can’t happen immediately, extract the same core textual content into real HTML pages with stable URLs and list them in the sitemap; use those pages as the canonical, crawlable source.

  • When keeping Flash temporarily, put honest fallback HTML inside the embedding element (the element’s children are the formal fallback). Do not hide a separate, keyword‑stuffed HTML page solely to trick crawlers. Example fallback pattern:

    <object data="site.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="800" height="600">
  <!-- Crawlable fallback: same headings, core text and links as the Flash UI -->
  <h1>Site title</h1>
  <p>Core product/service description and the same internal links (use real URLs).</p>
</object>

    Follow the object/fallback semantics and avoid display:none/off‑screen CSS tricks. (w3.org)

Finally, as and others noted, strong inbound links help, but they do not replace crawlable, useful HTML. The safest, most SEO‑stable route is to make the content itself accessible (HTML + metadata + structured data) and to retire Flash-dependent delivery as soon as possible.

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Member Avatar for stymiee

You could do this but you have two major issues with it:

1) It's twice the amount of work. Now you have two websites to maintain instead of one.

2) You risk the search engines considering you serving them up special content and banning for it. I wouldn't say this is certain to happen, but just the possibility of it makes the idea of trying it not very attractive.

The right way to handle this is to place alternative content in the <object> tag as specified in the HTML standard. That way users who don't have flash can see this content instead. You can do a lot of what you want this way without risk of penalty.

If you have an all flash website you have to accept that you will be handicapped in the search engines. It's a trade off that the site owner has to accept when they decide they are going to go with an all flash website.

Member Avatar for roryt

That is a good idea and i didn't ever think of that. I am pretty sure Bots would see the text because they aren't taking picture of the screen they are looking at your html files so if you have the text there somewhere then I am sure search engines will find out about it.

Member Avatar for etechsupport

Also search engines are very fond of quality inbond links though it a flash site, I usually see few top flash sites that has tremendous traffic and rank well in most of the search engine.

commented: Nice to see someone who uses their brain when it comes to SEO - stymiee +2
Member Avatar for stymiee

Also search engines are very fond of quality inbond links though it a flash site, I usually see few top flash sites that has tremendous traffic and rank well in most of the search engine.

That's the only real hope a flash site has. They need to get a heck of a lot of incoming links, quality ones at that, to hope to rank well at all. Flash sites have a slightly higher success rate of getting a successful viral campaign going because of the little tricks they can do with Flash but unfortunately most Flash sites don't really offer that "wow" factor or anything else to get a viral campaign started.

Member Avatar for etechsupport

Stymiee, I agree with that. This reminded me this quote, I don't know who said this;
"Everyone can be an artist. Some of us paint with words, others with musical
notes. Some do it with equations while others use bricks and mortar.
And some even do it with paints. No matter what medium we use, if
we've poured our soul into it, the result is bound to be a masterpiece".

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