Flash websites catch the attention of one and all. It is often described as a wonderful tool that can make a remarkable contribution to a website. However it is a known fact that flash websites are not indexed by search engines thus affecting the site traffic. With a little additional effort both the problems can be resolved and a flash search engine friendly website can be created that is accessible to the biggest target audience possible.
Progressive enhancement is an approach towards web designing. It constructs documents in such a way that they are accessible to anyone and everyone using any browser or Internet connection. It also enables those with better bandwidth and more advanced browser to have a richer experience. The idea behind using progressive enhancement is to have a basic content and format of the website which can be viewed through any browser and then add up more features using technologies like CSS, JavaScript, and Flash which will be displayed if the browser is compatible with the technology used.
While designing a flash website there are three areas of front-end web development:
Content an important aspect which has to be indexed by search engines should be designed through HTML accessible to any browser .It should be removed from the flash movies and should be loaded using XML files or the database. The images that contain no content and are only for presentation, which you would not like to be indexed by Google, should be named in such a way that Google doesn't cache them (e.g. leftcorner. gif ) and should be added using CSS and not flash plug-in as many of the visitors might be using CSS enabled browsers. JavaScript used to add behavior to the webpage should always be accompanied by an alternative script for non-JavaScript users.
One of the methods to add flash to a website is to use flash object script which can detect the Flash plug-in in all major web browsers and display the flash only if the browser is compatible and in other browser only the content of the page would be displayed. This gives you full control and much greater predictability over what content Google will index.
To conclude progressive enhancement presents a viable approach by enabling the delivery of information as demanded by the users.
This article has been compiled by the content development team at Pegasus InfoCorp which pulls subject matter specialists from different work domains. They can be contacted through the Pegasus InfoCorp website at info@pegasusinfocorp.com. Pegasus InfoCorp is an India based web design, web development and online/ offline software development company. Please visit http://www.pegasusinfocorp.com to read more articles and know more about us!
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