Flash + Non-flash content

[gwx03]

Again its me..

I am thinking of overhauling my site but I don't really feel like letting it go actually.. I was thinking : What about creating a flash site? Would it be a good idea to have the frontpage as before, only that the user has to choose to go to the flash or non-flash site? Since my search engine rating is pretty bad, I don't think it would be a good idea to go totally flash..? so should I use that idea? Or go ahead and use my Photoshop layout to make a hybrid website, abandoning my current design?

[Webforumz Staff]

Your current design has a lot of content on the front page, which is at least giving google something when it hits, but you only have a link to the actual site there and nothing more, which could work against you.

Having an all flash site would completly destroy a good PR and search engine placement that you had, even if that is quite low. As you know, google can't crawl flash sites at all, so unless you can rely on getting people to your site from your brand name or advertising, you better not go all flash.

Personally, I think you have too much information on your "enter page" to add further stuff for the user to read such as "html site" or "flash site" especially when many average internet surfers don't know what that means anyway.

So I think Hybrid is the way to go. It's safe. You can replace what would be images, with flash and simple animations to add some character to your site. If you do it nicely then it'll satisfy google and your visitors, but be warned, it is VERY hard to pull this off as a rule.

I think I kind of managed it with World Of ADSL a few months back, which is a heavy information-based site. The flash there is the navigation and the logo. But there is also HTML links at the very bottom of the page which, if you did in css, would appear at the very top of the source. But of course, I didn't do that, lol because the client decided not to pay me as much as we agreed [:P].