Searchengine Index Search engine indexing flash websites

Search engine indexing flash websites. Three methods to get your flash websites indexed by search engines.

Search engine indexing flash websites...
Search engine indexing and Flash websites.
Three methods of getting a complete flash website indexed by search engines .


Homepage is the most important page for any website and some people want this page to look very dynamic and highly attractive and flashy as well . The problem with this type of a homepage is that a complete flash page is not indexed by search engines . Homepage is the "gateway" to the rest of the website . A search engine will enter from this gate to find the rest of your website . But if it is not able to enter , then how do you get your website indexed by search engines ?




As a website designer , I often get requests to develop flash websites . These websites are not just websites with flash embedded in them but are completely in flash . Meaning all the links , all the text presented in flash on the homepage of a website .
When you will visit my website , you will see that I also have a fair understanding of search engines as well . This brings trouble when a client sees this . They want me to get their "Complete flash" website indexed by google . Is that possible ? Yes .




How do I do this ?


There are three methods of getting a flash website indexed by google , msn and yahoo . Using these methods , you can get a flash website indexed by all the three major search engines .




Method 1 .
This is the easiest but generally clients do not like this method as it requires the website to display a simple text link to the site map outside the flash .
I generally talk to my clients and often am successful in convincing them to display a simple html link to their sitemap from the bottom of the homepage . The problem is that most clients do not agree on displaying a link outside the flash .
A sitemap is a html page that holds links to all the other pages in the website . One can add a site search engine to this page and organise the page as well . An example of a very old sitemap that represents the above description is at http://www.ad4business.com/sitemap.html .
That is only an example and the website has shifted to a new location .




Method 2 .
This is a little difficult . Search engines are constantly indexing the web . In this process they find new URL's on an existing old website and index them . One can get a link to a secondary page from such an old indexed website . The link could be to products page , services page , article or any other page that holds links to the rest of the website . The difficulty in this method is that is very difficult to get a link to an "internal page" from another webmaster .
One can also get a link from a blog . Don't just go an "spam" other's blog with your link . They might even also block you from posting again .
You can get links from free web directories but most do not accept internal pages . There are very few who do and some also have a "nofollow" tag in the "rel" attribute which does not solve our purpose .



Method 3
This might sound a little weird but it works . Frames as we know are also not indexed by search engines but the text and links in "NOFRAME" tag do get indexed . Here we will use the frames and the NOFRAME tag to get our Flash website indexed . Here's how .
First instead of a simple HTML page , make three pages .
Page 1 - Master Frame .( index.html)
Page2 - Flash page . (anyname.html)
Page 3- Blank page with nothing . ( anyname2.html)


Now divide the Master frame in two rows of size 99% and 1% .
Call the flash page ( index.html) in the 99% frame area . Call the blank page in the small 1% frame area .
Now the main page ( index.html ) displays the flash and only the flash . The small area at the bottom is almost invisible and displays nothing . You can fill the blank page with the color of the flash to create a syncronising effect .
The frames should have a Frameborder="0" attribute preventing the border from getting displayed .
Don't forget to add proper text and a link to sitemap in the "NOFRAME" TAG . The search engine will follow the "NOFRAME" tag text and the link in it . You can have any html in that area. Search engines will index the text and the links in the article just like they index any regular webpage .


In addition to this , you should also add meta tags to your main page ( index.html) . Search engines accept meta tags , at least "http-equiv=description" tag is still acceptted by many search engines including MSn Search . They have it mentioned on their webmaster help page . There is a meta tag generator and a small meta tag tutorial at https://www.website-design-software-india.com/meta.html .


Feel free to contact me for any help on the frames at https://www.website-design-software-india.com/ .