spectrum48k

Anyone who read my earlier thread about needing a website to scale fully to the size of the current browser window (eg. 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, etc) will realise that when the website contains images, there isn't any real way to implement this using standard html & css

So I'm thinking I could write it in FLASH which does scale fully to the browser window no matter what screen-res. I assume it'll use some kind of biliniear filtering on the photos to scale them up and down to.

Can anyone shed any light as to what the implications would be regarding search engine rankings, if I do the site in FLASH ?

Iain Young

Well, the google robots etc don't look inside flash objects (just the plain text on the website), so they will not see any information that you have on the website. This will severely affect your rankings. I "think" they also negatively mark websites which have a lot of flash and javascript content.

p.s. I wouldn't use flash to scale images, especially if you are trying to sell them. They look terrible imo.

RichB

Iain - Are you sure about that. I was led to believe that Google did now read flash files. Never proved or really looked into it, just what I had heard from someone else.

Have a look at the Cartier/Porsche sites and see if you can work out how they did it.
CARTIER - The renowned French jeweller and watchmaker although they use iframes.
Masterwerk.

I think sites with lots of javscript and flash objects might be marked down because the useful words density on the page becomes smaller perhaps...

Iain Young

Not 100% sure. I know it used to be the case, but they may have updated it since I last looked.

I find flash sites very annoying personally, so would never contemplate coding one. Flash is best used for small effects, complementing the rest of the site, not controlling it. If I'm browsing the web and come across a flash only site, I tend to ignore it and go somewhere else straight away.

RussBoy

Google (but only Google) have been able to see Flash for about 15-18 months now, but I agree with Iain in that Flash is ok as a plug-in small movie or similar but crap for a whole site.


Russ

spectrum48k

Have to agree with these comments as well - I bloody hate Flash! Great for doing the odd spot effect to compliment the main page, but nothing else.

Is there any other alternatives that will auto scale an image? I have a vertical column of 3 images where the image size and cell-spacing has to be proportional. They column needs to stretch to the full height of the browser window.

I may have to put my foot down with the guy and say, no - your square brochure can't be translated exactly into a web page that works at all resolutions and just do something that does work.