I regularly use the image names in my articles to help with SEO. For example, <img src="/images/search_phrase.jpg" title="Search Phrase"> I use animated GIFs when the file size makes sense. But now, in place of images I'm thinking about inserting Macrome... uh. Adobe Flash in my articles to better explain some concepts. Does anyone have experience with this? Are the SEO techniques similar? If the Flash filename is search_phrase.swf and in the EMBED/OBJECT I set name="search phrase" will that do the trick? Does anyone have any experience with this?
I would think that it wouldn't give you the same advantage as using an image. Search engines can look at the dimensions of the image and give more weight depending on the size. I don't think they would do that for a flash animation though. I have heard that Google can now read text in a flash animation. So if there is text in the animation it might help, but probably not much at all. If possible I would still include an image with keywords in the filename somewhere on the page. A few backlinks to the page could offset any drawback to using flash. It would probably make for a better post and might even attract some links naturally.
of course. it won't hurt it bad but you will lose that little edge you get from having images and the alt tags.
Although the two objects can be swapped out, the object's attributes (alt & title) will not SEO swap. In an image that is contained within a link <a href="http://www.mysite.com"><img src="/myimage.gif" alt="my keyword"></a> has no real value, it is in the link. But if you do a direct swapout <a href="http://www.mysite.com"><object src="search_phrase.swf"></a> the link will screw up the internal of the flash. Not if you add the title attribute to the flash object <a href="http://www.mysite.com"><object src="search_phrase.swf" title="mykeyword"></a> the title attribute has no real SEO value. As for the name string, there is no real value to the keyword name. I do it, but can not justify it for real. But with all of this said, just swap out the images with the flash and don't worry about the SEO. The user experience is more important. And sorry about my command syntax.
Thanks to both of you for your help. catanich, sorry but I'm a little unsure of the meaning of your "command syntax" in the above sentences. Can you please clarify your point? Thanks.
Sorry, I didn't use the exact command syntax in my examples, only the important elements for the discussion.