<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Google actually recommends that you build an HTML version of the site for it to crawl, instead of your Flash content. So I see SWFObject as just streamlining that method.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Jesse Warden has an old blog post about it if you want to dig it up (try searching for "jesterxl google flash" or something similar)</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>However, if you were in fact putting a bunch of keywords and repeated search phrases in your replaced 'alternate' content, and some human from google looked at it, i can imagine they wouldn't be too happy about it.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>SWFObject is just a tool - you get to use it however you want.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Aug 16, 2006, at 7:51 PM, Pablo Garayzábal wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"> <DIV class="Section1"><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Arial"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">Hi,<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">As previously discussed here, another advantage of using SWFObject is that you can place html content inside the div layers so that it will be read by search spiders but won’t be visible to the visitors. (It’s replaced by a swf file).<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">For example<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><div id=”myLayer”><O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"> Here is a text with keywords, links etc, just for search engine optimization.<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"></div><O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><script><O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:35.4pt"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial">var fo=new SWFObject(….);<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"> fo.write(“myLayer”); <O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"></script><O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">So, If you do this, the fact is that you are creating content just for the search engines, and that it is invisible or hidden for the visitors.<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">Doing this seems to break the two first rules of Google Quality guidelines:<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">As you can see in this link:<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Arial"><A href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#quality"><SPAN lang="EN-GB">http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#quality</SPAN></A></SPAN></FONT><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P><B><FONT size="3" face="Arial"><SPAN style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold">Quality guidelines - basic principles</SPAN></FONT></B><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN style="font-family:Arial"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P> <UL type="disc"> <LI class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><FONT size="3" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial">Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as "cloaking." <O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></LI> <LI class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><FONT size="3" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial">…<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></LI> </UL><P><B><FONT size="3" face="Arial"><SPAN style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold">Quality guidelines - specific guidelines</SPAN></FONT></B><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN style="font-family:Arial"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P> <UL type="disc"> <LI class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><FONT size="3" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial">Avoid hidden text or hidden links. <O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></LI> <LI class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><FONT size="3" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial">Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects. <O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></LI> <LI class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><FONT size="3" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial">…<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></LI> </UL><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">Placing content inside the SWFObject target layers can be considered as “cloaking”? …or as hiding text or links? …both?<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">These are the FIRST two things google claims to be avoided.<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">So… what do you think? <O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">A first approach can be: “Don’t place content for google, just a message for people who don’t have flash installed.” Ok but… what is the difference? Can google see the difference?<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">As Geoff said in a recent post: Try to search for this in google: “This text is replaced by the Flash movie.” <O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">This text is the one used in Geoff’s examples, and a lot of people have just copied and pasted it in their pages, so google has about <B><FONT color="black"><SPAN style="color:black;font-weight:bold">5.140.000 </SPAN></FONT></B><FONT color="black"><SPAN style="color:black">results, so it must be aware of this issue now (…or not?)<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">Does google recognize semantics? Is it allowing the “This text is replaced by the Flash movie.”, but will penalize other messages like, for example, “The best IT company, IT services, consulting”,?<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial">Pablo.<O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Arial"><SPAN lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></FONT></P> </DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">SWFObject mailing list</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:SWFObject@lists.deconcept.com">SWFObject@lists.deconcept.com</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://lists.deconcept.com/listinfo.cgi/swfobject-deconcept.com">http://lists.deconcept.com/listinfo.cgi/swfobject-deconcept.com</A></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>