What is the difference between a site done in HTML and one in flash

A website developed in HTML is definitely good from an Search Engine Optimization perspective. While you may still have some flash content, but it is recommended to keep it to the minimum as the search engines aren't developed enough to read flash content. Also, it may result in a slower website which may further hamper the ranking of your website in the SERP's.

 

Far from it . Flash has a lot of aces up it's sleeve , from improved graphics to shorter creation time .

Anyway unless you're an expert in flash you should ticks with pure HTML . Or your SEO will suffer .

 

html sites are light weight and easy to load. Flash sites are heavy and take time to load, and not search engine friendly.

 

That doesn't mean it can't be done. canvas has a lot going for it, too, including HTML's far better SEO advantages over flash and no need for plugins or those who disable flash.

 

Each method has it's drawbacks and advantages .
SEO can be used in Flash to some extent it's just that the people that know how to wield it are rarer then bald eagles . AJAX is well know and used method while asynchronous AS is almost unknown by most people . As for the disabling problem there are far less block Flash then people that block JS . One good practice is to use one technology as a backup .

I know that you're a big fan of Steve but don't you think that the industry would benefit quite a lot if the stalemate between Apple and Flash would come to a peaceful end ?

 

You won't have a search engine friendly site if it is built in Flash as the major SE have problems parsing such markup