No Flash Here

Websites created with Flash can be highly creative and interactive, but for the moment, they are not search engine friendly. While there are work-around's to make some aspects of a Flash site searchable, you can not make the entire site and all its content searchable.

Until the day when all search engines can scan entire Flash-driven sites, HTML sites—like this one—offer the best solution. For those who want some of the benefits of a Flash site, like control over page layout, interactivity, and the abilty to create dynamic pages, HTML can be partnered up with other technologies.

Cascading Style Sheets

I designed this website to showcase the creative power of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This site is 100% flash free and has a single, shared style sheet, which controls the page layout and simulates the interactive drop-down menues, rollover and popup images. This site was written with validated HTML and CSS code, with a dash of JavaScript on the homepage.

CSS opens up so many layout opportunities for the designer. Layout tools no longer have to be restricted to tables, which were created to house data. Furthermore, items can be hidden and revealed, opening up interactivity enhancements modern web-serfers appreciate. Designers are able to create stunning HTML pages with far more ease than ever before, while retaining the ability to have search engines scan all their content.

What does this mean?

• The content within HTML websites are more easily and readily accessible (and searchable)
• There is less to get in the way of search engines and visitors
• HTML sites are easier to update
• No plug-ins are needed to view HTML sites
• HTML sites load faster
• CSS creates endless creative design possibilities

For all these reasons, HTML sites that use XML, CSS, JavaScript (which combines to form AJAX), as well as other markup languages, should be considered carefully over Flash when creating creative sites full of information that internet users will want to find.