The Ugly Truth about the Beauty of Flash

Nothing creates a chasm between SEO experts and Web designers, like Flash. Flash is a wonderful program that brings moving pictures, cartoons, and total aesthetic license to web site design, but it is a nightmare for search engine marketing. The reason is pretty simple – search engines cannot easily index the contents of a Flash file and unless you create plenty of readable text inside a Flash movie, you can simply count this a lost cause for boosting your rankings. There are ways to work around this, but they are not easy and until search engines start indexing Flash movies as plain text, they are only a band-aid to the real solution.

The reason search engines do not index Flash sites is that they are too complex for the spiders to comprehend. The spiders do index the file names, but they cannot touch the most important parts that search engine marketers rely on to make a web site work.

Flash movies are made up of an extension owned by Adobe (called a *.swf file) that search engines cannot read. All search engines really dislike this format but they will index small portions of these files.


As a general rule, keep Flash files to a minimum on your web sites. You can use small movies in certain situations, but less is definitely best. This is not for just optimization reasons. Flash movies also take up me a lot of bandwidth on your computer.


More importantly, all people cannot view Flash. This means that unless the person trying to view your web site has the current Flash viewer on their computer, they cannot even view your web site! You want all people to have access to your site. There is a prompt to download the viewer when they come to your site, but not all people will add the file to their computer. This can potentially turn customers away from your business.

This is not to say that Flash should never be used in your web site. I personally think web sites designed with Flash are beautiful, but it should be used to add to your web site, not to define the site. It is wonderful for visual representation to your site, the majority of your web site still needs to be text for optimization.
So, how do you solve a Flash dilemma? The following is a list of fixing some of the issues:


Alternative Pages: Offer a duplicate HTML version of your web site that does not force the viewer to watch the Flash movies. This will ensure that your site will be indexed and people can view your web site.

Metadata: This allows you to input information into your Flash files that can allow search engines to read your web site. Flash offers the development tools necessary to do this.

Search Engine SDK: Adobe offers a tool called swf2html that allows you to extract text in your swf files and change them to html – thus making them searchable! While this isn’t foolproof, it puts your web pages much farther along for search engine optimization.

While all of these ideas cannot replace setting up proper search engine optimization from the start of your web site, it also means that you do not have to take your aesthetic site and scrap the whole thing.

Did the Chinese Hack into the Pentagon?

Are the Chinese Using Hacking As a First Line of Attack?

According to the AP, the Chinese government denied claims this week that they tried to hack into the Pentagon’s computer systems in June of this year. This comes amid claims by the British that China also tried to hack into Parliament this year. Germany has also had problems with spyware and hacking programs attacking their ministries.

Is this the new method of war amongst the superpowers? Will hacking into defense systems be the way to drop the protective walls of a nation?

This all comes on the heels of a Financial News report this week that the Chinese military had hacked into Defense Secretary Robert Gate’s office in June. This hacking attempt prompted the takedown of their network for one week. The amount of information stolen has not yet been disclosed.

China denied any attempts to hack our computer systems. "Some people make groundless accusations against China" that its military attacked the Pentagon, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular news briefing.

"China has all along been opposed to and forbids criminal activities undermining computer networks, including hacking," she said. "China is ready to strengthen cooperation with other countries, including the U.S., in countering Internet crimes."

Earlier this year, the Pentagon stated that the Chinese had been looking at hacking as an offensive weapon as early as 2005.

While the possibility that another source could be disguising their locations and using China as a scapegoat to set off these attacks, the possibility is frightening that our own technologies could be used against us in future wars.

Do you believe the Chinese army is using hackers to probe our defense systems?

Is a hacker from another nation be the true culprit trying to bait the US, England, and Germany into a war with China?

What do you think?

eCommerce Solutions for your Web Site

So, you want to sell stuff online? You may have a business or maybe you just want to de-clutter your home of those “hidden treasures”. Anyway you look at it, this is eCommerce.

eCommerce: The very word scares a lot of people, but there isn’t really any magic to it. If you want to sell online, you can do it! What you need to know are the types of eCommerce that are available to you and the methods that you can go about to start making money. Below is a list of the ways that you can get online.

Business-to-Consumer (B2C): This is the eCommerce that most people think about when they hear of selling online. With this style, you have an online storefront and customers come to your web site and buy things from you. Doing this typically involves having an online merchant account through a bank and paying a small percentage off of each sale to this merchant account. There is usually a monthly fee involved, as well, so you’ll want to make sure you are selling product to off-set these costs.

There are other, more cost-effective ways of selling online. One of these methods is with Google Checkout. This method allows you to sell online with the use of a credit card. It is similar to eBay’s PayPal, but lacks payment of cash from one person to another. Still, I know of people using this method now without an online merchant account. It may be something to consider if you just want to “test the waters” of eCommerce.

Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C): I am sure you know of this type of eCommerce, though may be unfamiliar of the name. This is the type of commerce that people use on auction sites, like eBay or sale sites, like the craft web site called, Etsy. These type of sites usually ask for a nominal transition fee for allowing you to place an item for sale on their sites.

Business-to-Business (B2B): This type of site has been around for a long time. This type of transaction makes up the majority of all commerce online. Types of these sites would include, but are not limited to: Company Web Sites, Product Supply and Procurement Sites, and Pay-for-Information Sites.

Consumer-to-Business (C2B): How does this one work, you ask? This type of site is when the consumer requests a service from a business. A typical site like this would be the William Shatner promoted Priceline.com. You contact the business and tell them what you want to pay.

Adding an eCommerce model to your business does not have to be complex. Our services can either consult you on the processes to start your own online sales or we can set up everything for you.

Contact myWebSource1 if you are interested in selling online today.