Flash is all over the internet. These files are commonly played as animations, mini-movies, and short films. Flash is used as a means to advertise in all fields. But, Flash may do things you don’t anticipate. It may be something that will cause far more problems than advantages.

The internet is far older than many users believe. It was used as a military means of conveying information for decades before it became available to the general consumer. During this time this new medium had one sole purpose: the conveyance of information. It was used to relay data from location to another a great distance away.

Even when it became available to consumers during the 1980s, it was a skeleton of what it is today. Information was little more than words on the screen and only accessible to those wealthy enough to afford the peripherals necessary. It remained all about information until this point.

Through the 1990s, technology grew with the internet. As this medium became more available to consumers, the capabilities moved just as fast. Suddenly, the internet became all about visual imagery and pushing the browser to the edge of it’s ability.

One factor remains today that originated all those years ago. The internet is still all about information. This fact has been overshadowed by mammoth graphics, fussy layouts, and even Flash.

Flash is generated into two files. One that is uploaded to the server and one that is embedded into your web page. There is no denying Flash’s excellent visual appeal. However, it is a deceptive appeal that may cause many new webmasters to have migraines.

Flash is a tedious code to work with. Many new, and even experienced, webmasters download the “free templates” expecting the work to be done, and find it has only begun. Not only must you customize every link in the free files, you must do so on a frame-by-frame basis.

To add to the issues with Flash, it is not SEO friendly. The websites that have intricate and awesome movies on their launching page will likely have little traffic. The best ranking sites all have one quality in common: they didn’t ignore the purpose of the web.

Search engine spiders, crawlers, and bots are after information by way of text. They can’t read graphics, images, or flash files. Flash does not offer the language these services need to index your site or decide any actual ranking.

Flash also handicaps the majority of internet users. For example, in America, it is easy to believe everyone has high speed. Those who don’t have access to broadband can have satellite broadband. However, 20% of American internet users are limited to slow dial-up connections, regardless.

To add to the figures against Flash, American traffic is only around 21% of world internet traffic, regardless of connection. The numbers aren’t a great deal better for other countries. France averages around 25% of the population still limited to dial-up. Currently, Russia stands at around 52% of its population limited to dial-up connections.

Using technology that filters out all this traffic is akin to “shooting yourself in the foot.” If you are a graphic artist or photographer, you should create an interesting homepage that only uses thumbnail images. Your traffic will be expecting a great deal of images, but may not anticipate actually waiting on a 5 MB photograph to download. They will get frustrated or simply bored and leave.

Webmasters have around 10-30 seconds to interest a visitor. Your homepage should load within that time frame. Using a good, appealing design will give your site the visual interest you desire with the speed necessary online.

It is best if new webmasters or those new to Flash forgo this medium for a homepage. There is always an option to create a section of your web site specifically for Flash files where visitors can be warned. If you use it on your main pages, it will likely cause you to lose traffic. Using this information to your advantage ensures you won’t be filtering out traffic that should be enjoying your hard work.

Tags: design, Flash, traffic, web page, web site, webmasters

This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Dreamweaver: Getting Started. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.