Search Engine quesiton

[GR Web FX]

Hey People,

I gotta question regarding search engines. I designed a basketball site about 5 months ago which im currently optimising to try and get higher rankings in search engines.

I understand that some search engines require you to use META Tags and some like Google require you to have good links to your site from other sites.

My basketball site starts off with a flash intro and then waits until you 'click to enter'. ( www.warwickshirebasketball.co.uk )

I know that websites created purely in Flash dont get high rankings because there is no information when you view the HTML code.

When a web crawler/spider goes onto my site is it going to get any further than my flash intro??? Im worried i have shot myself in the foot so to speak!!

Thanks alot

GR Web FX

[2ndPlatform]

Hey People,

I gotta question regarding search engines. I designed a basketball site about 5 months ago which im currently optimising to try and get higher rankings in search engines.

I understand that some search engines require you to use META Tags and some like Google require you to have good links to your site from other sites.

My basketball site starts off with a flash intro and then waits until you 'click to enter'. ( www.warwickshirebasketball.co.uk )

I know that websites created purely in Flash dont get high rankings because there is no information when you view the HTML code.

When a web crawler/spider goes onto my site is it going to get any further than my flash intro??? Im worried i have shot myself in the foot so to speak!!

Thanks alot

GR Web FX

From my experience - you'll probably have a bit of a harder time but I don't think it's impossible. Is there any way to have a small paragraph of text on the home page as well? Something tasteful that doesn't detract from your intro? What about SEOing your inside pages as well? When you do your link campaign, you can focus on getting visitors to your inside pages instead of the first home page.

Another question you might want to ask is - is that Flash page necessary? Can you incorporate a smaller but similar Flash peice as, say, the header of your home page, where you then have room to put your copy and other content as well? What purpose does the intro serve and is it essential to your site? I'm saying yea or nay... just something to ask yourself.

Good luck!

[GR Web FX]

Excellent thankyou, i will have a think about that.

When you look at the intro, if you look under the white frame i have written some text in HTML just saying 'warwickshire basketball association'. If i turn this into a HTML link to the homepage of my basketball site, when a web crawler/spider goes through my site, should it sort out my problem?

Unfortunatley the intro has to stay as it was part of the design criteria.

Thansk alot
GR Web FX

[2ndPlatform]

Excellent thankyou, i will have a think about that.

When you look at the intro, if you look under the white frame i have written some text in HTML just saying 'warwickshire basketball association'. If i turn this into a HTML link to the homepage of my basketball site, when a web crawler/spider goes through my site, should it sort out my problem?

Unfortunatley the intro has to stay as it was part of the design criteria.

Thansk alot
GR Web FX

I would definitely make that a text link. Are those your keywords as well? You'll do better if your anchor text for that links is your keywords.

Good luck -- nice site too. Let me know if you need anything else!

-Second Platform

[dexterz]

I would remove the flash intro page. There is no content in there. Search engine start indexing pages from the root your domain which is index,default and home .extension.

[jtbnet]

Try submitting a site map to google - let it know of any other pages / sections of your site it might not be able to reach from your intro page.

[m-soft]

let your flash there, but place a html link somewhere at the bottom of the page.

chml srucnoc

[katarey]

Hi There.

I have seen your site, it's nice,

Yes there are lots of possibilities for SEO your site,

I am giving you some tips

a) I have seen you are using flash Buttons for navigation with good effect, but that effect can also made by images onRollover,
b) Make text links at footer or other place,
c) add HTML And XML Site Map in your website,

No need to remove the flash intro just add a div with search engine friendly contents, And JavaScript to detect when browsers are capable of viewing Flash, if browsers are capable so show flash or replace the alternative, Search engine spiders are not able to Run the JavaScript, they will index the alternative content. Where you can use the search engine friendly text and other SEO techniques,
Programming Flash accessibility isn't spamming, as long as the alternative content accurately reflects the visible movie. In fact, alternative content is mandatory if you want to build an accessible site.

Search "How to SEO Flash, Article by Jonathan Hochman" For more details

Katarey