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5 Reasons Why I Don’t Like Flash Websites

Posted by Paul B | January 27, 2008 .

It seems that the post I did about SiteCube has caused a bit of a fuss. In fact I’ve removed the one way link to the reseller that was originally mentioned (because I was asked to) , I’m not trying to wreck anybody’s business, just make a point. Whenever I talk about Flash I’m talking from a business perspective, more specifically a small business point of view, if you want to have a Flash website built to host your family photographs then each to their own. Personally I’d go for a free service like Flickr or even better PhoTrade (and make some money out of it) but that’s just me.

Anyway, Flash and the small business. Here are my top 5 reasons why I don’t like Flash websites:-

1. Eliminating Dial-Up Traffic - I know this will shock a lot of people but there are still a great number of people who access the internet via a dial-up connection. A quick look at my stats shows around 40% of people who come here do it via a dial-up internet connection. The load time involved with even a modest Flash website will be enough for most people to hit the back button.

2. Portability, Or Rather The Lack Off - In a modern world where the world wide web is about far more than using a computer it’s important that your website is usable on as many devices as possible. There are portable devices that support Flash but because of the lack of external formatting options/settings in my experience it is pointless. With a nicely valid xHTML/CSS site you’ve got no problems.

3. A Whole Website On 1 Page - In the eyes of the search engines your website is going to be limited to your title, description, keywords and as much text as you can get into your noscript tag. This not only has a terrible affect on any potential rankings but it also means that if somebody wants to link to a specific part of your flash website they can’t. This actively discourages other webmasters from linking to you. It’s also commonly accepted that larger websites are seen with a better light by the search engines.

4. Link Relevancy - It’s not the number of links that count anymore, it’s the relevancy. How can the search engines know if something is relevant or not if it can’t read what is on the page (beyond the title, description etc). Even if you can get links (which you’ll most likely have to buy) the chances of the search engines counting them as quality links is minimal.

5. PPC Quality Penalty - Have you ever tried attracting visitors to a Flash website with PPC, I have? It all comes back to that same old problem of what the search engines can and can’t trawl but you’re going to find it very hard to get a decent quality score when your landing page is a Flash website. This mean higher PPC costs per visitor, you’d also better hope that they’re not visiting via dial-up.

I own a small business and the thing that has made me relatively successful is the idea of a ROI. Everything I do with regards to my business has to have a ROI, having a website built is no different. With Flash I see the chance of getting anything back out the investment (no matter how small that investment may be) is extremely limited.

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11 Comments so far
  1. Guitar Hero 4 UNITED STATES Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11  January 27, 2008 10:43 pm

    I agree with pretty much everything in this post. There is just too much value in the words you put on the page. I mean if your like a big name brand company you could get away with it.

    Guitar Hero 4’s last blog post..Guitar Hero and Rock Band Drive Music Sales

  2. Guitar Hero 4 UNITED STATES Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11  January 27, 2008 10:44 pm

    BTW this is my first time hereand I like that little Last post thing on the comments. Never seen it before.

    Guitar Hero 4’s last blog post..Guitar Hero and Rock Band Drive Music Sales

  3. Shirei INDONESIA Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 1.0.1  January 28, 2008 7:23 am

    I dont like flash web too. I’m using dial up…. so I cant load Flash site

    Shirei’s last blog post..Hadiah Istimewa dari saya di Ghost Online

  4. Paul B UNITED KINGDOM Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11  January 28, 2008 8:51 am

    The post after comment thing is from a plugin called Commentluv, it’s just another way of giving a little something back to those who make the effor to comment :)

    Shirei, you’re far from alone using dial-up, I’d be interested to know how fast this website is?

  5. SEO Optimization ITALY Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11  January 28, 2008 3:10 pm

    Even tho there are methods to optimize flash sites for search engines yet it is something limited as to what can be done. Your points are valid (neither I have ever liked flash sites much, maybe just some small parts of flash).

    As far as it regards this site it loads just great (tho i am on DSL)

    SEO Optimization’s last blog post..My Personal Ramblings - 01/27/2008

  6. Krista Neher Windows Vista Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11  January 31, 2008 10:27 pm

    Hi Paul

    Thanks for mentioning Photrade (which is how I found your post). I fully agree with all of the risks to using flash. We actually have some SEO issues caused by out use of Java.

    Krista Neher
    VP Marketing
    - PS - We are currently invite only, but if you mention this article I can give you an invite. email: info at photrade dot com

  7. Paul B UNITED KINGDOM Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11  January 31, 2008 10:45 pm

    Hi Krista,

    I’m signed up already but maybe a few readers might like to give Photrade a go?

  8. Laptop INDONESIA Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.9  February 17, 2008 1:48 am

    I agree with that. I use FlashBlock (firefox plugin) to block flash

    Laptop’s last blog post..HP Pavilion DV6775US 15.4 Inch Entertainment Laptop

  9. Free Proxy UNITED STATES Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.9  February 22, 2008 2:20 pm

    Yes, I hate flash too, since I use slow internet connection

    Free Proxy’s last blog post..Phproxy.us - Surf Anonymous

  10. Chris UNITED STATES Mac OS X Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.12  March 17, 2008 10:34 pm

    I have to agree with you. I hate flash websites. They have too many bells and whistles, too much going on, they take too long to load.

    The trend has moved to simpler sites.

    Chris’s last blog post..Watch Jericho Episodes, Survivor Episodes Online

  11. Internet Marketing Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.14  May 17, 2008 9:45 am

    I use those with clients. I have another one which I have started to use lately and its working. I sell B2B website. Sites should be simple with an easy flow of how a person should work the site. As soon as you add animation you break the chain of thought. So instead of looking at the key heading they land up looking at the animation, it breaks the visitors though pattern

    A quick note on the 40%, here in South Africa, that is most probably much higher and our fast connections are 512k (64k), add 10 users to the network and you might as well be on a dial up.

    Flash sucks.