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There is no industry consensus regarding the use of Flash on a web site when it comes to the issue of SEO. The general problem with Flash is that the search engines don’t see the text embedded within those files so they can not rank these files. But Flash has can produce beautifully and highly usable websites.

So the designer, SEO, and site owner have to work together to deal with this issue IF it’s important to “solve” this issue. Here are the major of choices one is faced with. However what technical solution you should use will have a lot to do with the present design of the site.

The big question is the site 100 percent Flash or does it have Flash as an insertion within an HTML file(s). It’s the 100 percent flash file that represents the bigger challenge. Here are some of the major approaching to dealing with SEO for Flash enabled sites.

Redesign complete in HTML. Some designers feel that a complete redesign is required. They feel that Flash is a complete disaster and should not be used at all. These designers point to a number of issues:

• In Bound Links are a problem because you have to decide where to send them; the HTML alternative page or the Flash page.
• If you don’t redo your pages you can only add a limited amount of keyword rich text to the metadata like the title and description tags.

Here is this is a link presenting this perspective:

http://www.flashkit.com/tutorials/Tips_And_Techniques/Flash_SE-Ashley_P-1360/index.php

On the other end of the scale are those that advocate the use of the MacroMedia Flash SDK. Using the Flash SDK you can see if how the search engines will see you files. Macromedia developed this SDK because it realized the search engines weren’t reading their .SWF formats. They offer the SDK to the Search Engines to encourage them to be able to index .SWF files. Here are some details about the limit of this approach:

• Flash search won’t read traced text or text that has been broken apart, so don’t make the letters a shape even if you’re temped do this is for letter spacing, which designers tend to do for critical text titles.
• It will also ignore dynamically loaded text. Be it from external files or dynamically generate from the myText.text function.
• HtmlText — any URLs assigned using this function will be pulled while the rest of the content will not.
• It should be remembered that each Search Engine may be using the SDK or do their own implementation, so mileage with vary.

Here is an article that talks about taking this approach:

http://www.straightupsearch.com/archives/2006/02/flash_and_seo_s.html

IP Cloaking – This method of serving up different content for the search engines spiders vs. end-users has long been considered a black hat, unethical, SEO tactic. This is accomplished by keeping a current list of the IP signatures of all the known spiders on the web and comparing it to the IP header information as HTTP requests are received. If the IP is on the list then the text version is sent to the spider. If the IP isn’t on the list then the Flash page is sent.

• There are legitimate uses of cloaking. For example the New York Times uses IP Cloaking to send full content to the spiders so it can be indexed. The regular reader doesn’t have access to The Times achieves because they have to purchase individual articles or subscribe to the service.
• If the content of the Flash and HTML versions of the pages then the use of IP Cloaking wouldn’t necessary be considered a misuse. However, in the past IP cloaking has been used as a bait-and-switch technique so it has a bad reputation with the SEs.

Another approach is to use the free Javascript script called SWFObject() which detects when browsers has the Flash Plug-In. If SWFObject detects that the Flash Plug-In is present then the code assumes that this is a real browser and serves up the Flash version of the file. Since most search engine can’t deal with Flash, they’ll only see the primary content. This content is regular HTML content; like links, text, headers, images, etc. coding that is normally added to an ordinary HTML page. It is this part of the file that is edited and styled to be SEO friendly.

A good reference for SWFObject can be found here:

http://www.jehochman.com/articles/seo-friendly-flash.shtml

Not everything has to be a technical solution. The site may have been designed with a high income audience in mind right from the start. So the “solution” may have nothing to do with ranking well in the organic listings. Do a PPC campaign instead of trying to build organic traffic may be a better approach.

None of these methods address the problem that you have to do the site twice, one for Flash and another for the HTML version. So if you do any of this after the fact you will undoubtedly have created more work for yourself.

It’s a truism, but like them all it’s of course true. Search has transformed our use of the web, and thereby just about everything in modern life.

But that transformation has been slow in getting to my pocket or my belt-clip. A recent survey by the 10 year-old San Francisco-based research firm Media-Screen finds that, although more than 60 percent of U.S. broadband users now own an internet-enabled mobile device, only five percent of them actually use the mobile internet.

When I’m at my desk I get it completely. Key in a word or two in the search box and I’m quickly presented with a whole list of links to which I can go, all of which have some degree of relevance to what I want. On the right hand side of my biggish screen there are the paid-for results too, which can often be just as relevant as anything amongst the so-called “organic” findings. Oh, and I’m sitting down, of course, and usually have time to scroll through my many options.

Out and about on the streets of New York, though, it’s a different story. With my mobile device in hand, I am on the go with limited time, and I’m VERY goal-oriented, not to say impatient with any expanse of information, not matter how interesting it might have seemed to me in a more leisurely setting. My connection is – for now at least – likely to be slow. Altogether it remains an unsatisfying experience – I wouldn’t for instance, try to find a vendor for a pair of chic boots west of Greenwich Avenue. Not via your cellphone screen, anyway.

So the industry is clearly trying to get a handle on this and improve things. The recent flurry of freshly-announced partnerships is some testimony to this. They include market giants like Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and a growing number of more focused search providers including InfoSpace, Fast Search & Transfer, Medio Systems, and JumpTap – and this upsurge in commitment certainly reflects a degree of excitement among both carriers and content companies.

But there’s a kind of blinkered vision at work, signified by the exclusiveness of the deals. T-Mobile has teamed up with Google, offering “web ‘n’ walk”; Verizon Wireless with Medio Systems, offering a Verizon-branded search service; a U.K.-based mobile multimedia company called simply “3″, with Yahoo! offering a mix of content and mobile applications … and there are many more in the mobile pipeline.

But a business model built on forming an alliance with a single search engine carries its own limitations. The Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo has decided to do something different. It has created a wholly new mobile search ecosystem comprising more than a dozen engines, directories, and content companies. Each brings its own index and expertise- and the whole caboodle delivers subscribers a well-rounded list of relevant results crafted specifically for high relevancy.

The world-penetrating Finnish mobile phone manufacturer, Nokia, is doing its part too. It’s selling its customers on a comprehensive out-of-the-box mobile search experience that delivers vertical search through a variety of search and content partners. What’s more, Nokia’s approach pays close attention to user’s own context, enabling a mobile search approach for every different category and search situation.

In the end, though, I believe success in this field will come down to neatness of delivery – it reduces to an entirely presentational matter. Consider me on the busy corner of Gansevoort Street and West 4th, squinting at my 2 inch screen, and if you’re a mobile search provider you’ll have to give me a specific answer to my need, not just a range of links to choose from.

The mainstream media have been fixating, unsurprisingly, on Viacom’s effort to get $1 billion from Google, almost two-thirds of what the search engine giant paid for YouTube, as copyright damages caused (allegedly) by the still pretty fledgling video-sharing upstart.

But another Old Media versus New Media struggle is also worth reporting on.

Google’s struggling search rival – Yahoo! – has found its efforts to stage a big revival being seriously dented by its interaction with AT&T, now the world’s biggest telecom company once again.

Yahoo shares fell by a worrying 5% recently when word got about that AT&T wanted to alter the terms of their partnering venture for delivering digital subscriber lines (DSL) for high-speed internet access.

It seems that that AT&T is now willing to share only a much smaller proportion of the revenue that the six-year-old deal pulls in. Industry observers reckon a change could cost Yahoo some $200 million to $250 million a year in this area of especially high-margin returns – while it has been used to annually getting an estimated $800 million out of the partnership.

The setback served to renew skepticism about Yahoo among many investors. Its shares dropped severely last year after a series of awkward and very public wobbles. There were fallings-short of predicted earning, and an embarrassing delay in the rollout of its Project Panama advertising system.

Share prices did recover with the arrival of 2007 – by a welcome 20%, indeed – but this recent brouhaha over AT&T prompted the company to try simply bluffing it out – rather than display anything of substance to reassure the investing community.

It merely dismissed the story as “rumor and speculation” while acknowledging that negotiations have been taking place. “As we continue our conversations, we have a common goal to increase the economic benefits for both parties”, said Chief Executive Terry Semel.

Those conversations, according to some in Wall Street, could even mean that AT&T would actually take Yahoo over in the end. It’s a move the telecom outfit has considered in the past, and now in many ways the search engine/web portal looks to some AT&T executive to be a wounded animal, especially in the wake of the share-price slip, which docked a whopping $8 billion off Yahoo’s market value.

What would you do if you were Google? (Imagine that thought for an instance!)

I don’t mean in size or capitalization, but just as the newish owner of a social networking website that specializes in video. I mean of course the difficult newly-adopted child, YouTube.

Consider that you’d purchased, for $1.65 billion, the upwardly rocketing newcomer, only to find that with all the added commercial scrutiny your jaw-droppingly enormous deal attracted, it turned out that video – the absolute mainstay of your new possession’s identity – was freshly the subject of ugly copyright disputes with some real BIG guys.

And by big guys I mean enormous media outfits like Viacom and NBC Universal. The trouble has gotten serious in recent days with Viacom filing its & billion suit for damages. Also included in the troublesome scenario have been smaller but still on occasions vitally important players, like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who right after the Oscars ceremony demanded YouTube take down scenes from the trophy-fest – which of course it exclusively owns.

You might consider changing tack, wouldn’t you? Well … softly, softly Google is still trying to negotiate reasonable accommodations with the indispensable titans of the content universe, but at the same time it IS changing tack. It’s concentrating on tying up a broad range of really quite small entities, which in the main could be described as niche purveyors.

Two typical examples … the National Basketball Association with whom YouTube is teaming up to create a new channel where the NBA itself would show authorized clips and where fans could upload short videos showcasing their best moves … and the independent music label, Wind-Up Records, who will stream music videos on YouTube and allow users to incorporate Wind-Up music tracks into their own videos.

Jordan Hoffner, You Tube’s head of Premium and Information Content Partnerships has set up a team dedicated to creating partnerships with such relatively minor entities in the video-production universe, and so far they have concluded some 1,000 deals – with little or no publicity, and certainly no details of the financial arrangements being made public. The partners range from the Sundance Channel to tiny production houses of video. (And just looking at the YouTube home page reveals already participating companies like Ford Models, Ford Motor Company – not to be confused with each other – Hollywood Records, and the YES sports network.)

And just to be clear again, this doesn’t mean that YouTube execs are ignoring the really big video-producers, the ones who can mean such legal trouble, but do control that essential video commodity in such bulk. They have now signed a deal, after all, with the BBC, one of the world’s biggest and oldest content-providers (and how they hate that description!). But it appears to be far from a triumphant accomplishment. Indeed industry insiders are saying the BBC deal isn’t all it was cracked up to be by YouTube, and falls far short of the deals YouTubers have been aiming for, so unsuccessfully so far, with US networks.

Predominantly only short BBC clips are being offered to YouTube visitors, including excerpts from shows like “Spooks,” “Top Gear” and “The Catherine Tate Show” (they’re British – and not known much beyond Britain) as well as the posting of 30 new news clips daily on YouTube – though that is some months away. Advertising, something the publicly-funded BBC has traditionally been forbidden to carry, will be displayed alongside some clips, but only for visitors from outside the UK.

And Google itself won’t be able to take advantage of the new deal – the BBC material is limited to YouTube, since “the Beeb” already has a broader search-based deal with Google’s rival Yahoo.

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For those still questioning the acquisition of YouTube by Google several months ago, I offer this rationale: Gmail Theater.

With an extremely low budget, paper clips and office supplies-style of puppetry, YouTube viewers are subjected to a four act play of sorts, explaining four benefits of using Gmail.

Entertaining: yes. But it sparks may debates regarding targeted marketing, and social media outlets harboring commercials and advertisers. Everywhere you go on the web, no matter how ‘free’ the viral video clip may be, chances are you will have to watch a 15-30 second commercial first. The cutesy, lo-fi approach from this Google YouTube collaboration totals over four minutes! We would never tolerate that length of time on TV (not even during the much coveted Super Bowl ads) so why is this type of targeted marketing acceptable on the web?

In the world of online marketing and SEO/SEM, this is marketing genius. In the real world of ‘I watch YouTube for cool virals, not commercials’, it’s like clicking on an innocent looking link and being redirected to a porn site. If that’s your thing (!), it wont bother you and you’ll find it entertaining. If it’s not, and it happens often enough, you may take the term ‘going postal’ to a new level not seen since Michael Douglas in Falling Down.

As the internet grows exponentially, the greedy advertisers and seedy SEM link ninjas (yours truly especially) look for new ways to target traffic and give more exposure to our clients. It’s inevitable that the next new thing will be harped on and exploited by all kinds for all purposes. Google paid $1.65 billion for this kind of exposure. Thankfully, we don’t charge as much!

The Aqua Teen Hunger Force debacle this week was guerilla marketing at its best and its worst. I’m sure that while no one expected to get arrested over Moonies, you’ve got to admit this much: you will check out an episode of ATHF just because you must know what all the fuss is about.

That’s the best part. The worst is the arrest of Sean Stevens and Peter Berdovsky; and the subsequent payout TBS will probably have to make – as reported by Reuters.

Although Boston may have overreacted (they were placed in nine cities with no other major panic), clearly there are other ways of spreading the word if you want to market your product.

One way is SEO and online marketing. Aggressive online campaigns could have helped target their demographic, restore interest in past viewers and gain a new audience. The main problem with the guerilla-style Attack of the Mooninites that plagued Boston, is that only the people who already knew what they were, got it. That definitely does not help to gain new viewers if they don’t know what they are looking at. That was until the news crews showed up and the hand cuffs were slapped on. Then everyone knew!

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The last thing I want to do, as I’m sure it’s the last thing any reader wants, is to review the year. It seems required of just about everybody who’s a regular media contributor.

But one aspect of the year has prompted me to override my own reluctance, since it’s brought up by factual reporting (though we’ll come to how fully factual it might be, later) not by opinionated reviewing.

We all know that online searching has become the key to how we consume our media now – even though the time-honored notion of simply (did I hear “idyllically”) surfing the web has not exactly gone away, no matter how antiquated it sounds. So just what, exactly, did we all search for in 2006?

The answers are revealing – and, depending on your point of view, either depressing or very depressing.

The biggest and most trend-capturing search engine is of course Google. And worldwide, what has been searched for through Google can be read in the form of a top-ten table. Number One is – guess what – a website, and a social-networking site at that. It’s Bebo, the fast-rising people-connector whose relative distinctiveness derives from its emphasis on music and musical bands in particular -in the way that YouTube functions through video – and which began in the UK, but in so far as any such entity has a physical geographical home, now boasts San Francisco as a base.

The full top ten list thrown up by Google is:

1 – Bebo

2 – MySpace

3 – World Cup

4 – Metacafe

5 – Radioblog

6 – Wikipedia

7 – Video

8 – Rebelde

9 – Mininova

10 – Wiki

The kicker to this reporting, however, is that Google is recommended by informed observers to be including in the numbers that kick Bebo to the top all sorts of inconsistencies, like the repeated misspellings of Bebo that all get aggregated together. Would that be enough to statistically alter the real rankings? Hmmm…. in later discussion, maybe, we should take note that what appear to be simple facts from Google will often need deeper investigation and interpretation.

Meanwhile the number two search engine, Yahoo, definitely appears to have developed a clear character of its own in 2006. If you hold up to the light its top ten searches, you’ll see that Yahoo has become the engine of choice for our celebrity culture. (Is that because, I wonder, it took its chief executive, Terry Semel, from the world of entertainment, in fact out of a 24 year career in the Hollywood dream factory of Warner Bros. Yahoo’s top ten searches look, like it or not, like this:

1 – Britney Spears

2 – WWE

3 – Shakira

4 – Jessica Simpson

5 – Paris Hilton

6 – American Idol

7 – Beyonce Knowles

8 – Chris Brown

9 – Pamela Anderson

10 – Lindsay Lohan

Now, you may think this is kind of sad, or very sad? But what if like me you’re British? Yahoo’s searches can be rather easily compared country by country. And this below – I tremble to acknowledge – is what the British users of Yahoo.co.uk have been mostly looking for on the Internet in 2006:

1 – Heather Mills McCartney

2 – Pete Burns

3 – Big Brother

4 – The Ordinary Boys

5 – World Cup

6 – Steve Irwin

7 – Borat

8 – Notting Hill Carnival

9 – Zidane

10 – Kate Moss

It makes any self-respecting Brit want to trade-in that nice navy-blue Her Britannic Majesty’s passport.

I could go on, and look at the way the lately re-christened third search engine, Live (formerly known as MSN Search) provides us with a obsession-measure that’s a bit more widely internationally-minded but still as celebrity-ridden, in that as well as Shakira of the magical hips it includes Ronaldinho of the magical soccer toes – but I won’t.

I’ll just wish everyone a happier and more rewarding New Year of searching.

If there remains any lingering doubt about the true meaning and purpose of children’s entertainment in the media, it comes in research published this week before Christmas. It is of course MERCHANDISING.

The revealing numbers come from the Center for Media Research – as it has surveyed which websites people mostly visit in search of toys and games in this gift-giving season. And where do people mostly go? To the sites of Disney and Nickolodeon of course.

Disney is absolute top of the heap with 8,141,000 unique visitors, and Nicolodeon a close-ish second with 7,898,000.

To ram the message home about the integral, powerful association between children’s TV and selling merchandise, these two TV-based entities are far ahead of the sort of companies whose business is the simple selling of toys. The modern online giant, eBay Toys, and the traditional granddaddy of toy mass-marketing, Toys-R-Us, sit respectively at the lower positions of three and four, with 4,060,000 and 2,968,000 unique visitors each. They lack the benefit of highly-visible, constantly outreaching TV platform of their own.

That more high-minded purveyor of children’ entertainment, public television, also figures in this revealing league table, whether it likes the company it keeps there or not. PBS Kids sits at position number eight, – just creeping over the one million mark for unique visitors (actually 1,108,000). And exactly who it’s rubbing shoulders with, or rather panting closely behind, is perhaps a little disconcerting for this proper educationalist. It’s Barbie, she of the blonde hair and plastic curves, who is just ahead with 1,121,000 hits in position number seven. (The entire league table can be seen at — http://www.mediapost.com/research/cfmr_brief.cfm)

I can hardly beat the simple summary of the situation that a inside player in the game offered recently. “Children’s television shows are just giant toy ads,” according to Gary Pope, a London-based children’s marketing consultant.

And I believe (none too proudly, I’m afraid) that it’s to my old home country that we can look to see future trends, especially at the younger end of the market.

The UK has long been a test bed for children’s television, developing innovations that are followed elsewhere. In the 1950s, it introduced the entire notion of educational TV. Before becoming a worldwide hit, the “Teletubbies” phenomenon was launched in the late 1990s by the BBC. That one show is credited with lowering the age of TV audiences to below 3 years, which had been the previous low benchmark.

Today, some of the most popular preschool shows in the U.S. are British, including “Bob the Builder” and “Thomas and Friends.”

And in both Britain and America TV networks are now chasing preschoolers desperately because, first (an old reason) they are at home a lot, but also (a newer line of thinking) they have not been, unlike their older brothers and sisters, abandoning TV for the Internet or video games.