Flash has been the love child of web designers since its introduction in 1996. Sure, it can provide a great creative outlet for a web designer. But, as a professional SEO and web consultant I know how detrimental its improper use can be in regards to the success of a web site. Often I wonder: is flash for fools?

Now before you take me as a Flash hater I have to state that Flash can be a useful tool when it is used properly. I can think of a number of examples. The best example is when it is used as a page element to enhances the objective of the page. Another good use is for the creation of videos to demonstrate your product or service or train your customers. This represents a tremendous opportunity for the use of Flash.

However, if it distracts from the page objective, then it is a failed exercise. A few good questions to ask yourself are “what value does this add” and “does this help me achieve my objective or does it distract from it”?

Unless you’re in the “cool” business, creating Flash elements or pages for the sake of being “cool” is the wrong use of the technology. Too much of this exists on the web.

So what does make an effective web page or site? My definition: The ability to effectively reach your target audience and convert traffic. So, why wouldn’t flash accomplish that?

1. Flash laden pages often take too long to load.
2. Search engines can’t fully read them or can’t read them at all.

Why would long page loads negatively affect my site? Most visitors click away from a site in less than five (5!) seconds. Likely in the 75 to 80% range for many sites. Take a look at your “time on site” stats within your web logs. Aside from usability issues, search engines are less likely to crawl, index, and rank sites if they take too long to load or the file size is overweight (the same result).

You may ask: “Can’t search engines read Flash files now?” http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_16603 Yes, but even the most advanced ones have limitation when it comes to this technology: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/07/best-uses-of-flash.html and you may be guaranteeing that that most of the “other” search engines will pass over your site.

Doesn’t web 2.0 and the social media change things? Search engines still deliver the bulk of traffic. Some can read elements of flash files but they still can’t read images and movie related code. For now.

So what is the worst use of Flash? Splash pages. It’s now 2007, nearing 2008. Flash Splash pages should not exist in this era. You only have one to two seconds to capture the attention of a visitor. How long does it take your flash splash page to load?

So, is Flash is for fools? I’ll let you decide.

To learn more about Flash, please visit the following Wikipedia post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash

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