Chuck Aikens

Some forms of “Web 2.0” innovations, such as blogs and wikis, are by nature optimized for SEO. The reason is that they are primarily static web pages composed of readable text that can be easily indexed by web search robots. Other forms of Web 2.0 technologies are not so SEO friendly, because links and text are either embedded and cannot be read by robots or they require some action on the user’s part that can’t be carried out by standard robots. In order to maximize SEO for these technologies one has to devise some creative strategies.

Flash is widely used to dress up the appearance of websites. The problem for SEO is that Shockwave (.swf) Flash files are compiled down into elements that can be challenging for search robots to access. Some more sophisticated robots have been programmed to extract links and other text from them, but it’s the exception and not the rule. This lack of access makes Flash much less effective than a static HTML page. One way to make Flash more visible to web crawlers is to include the text content of a
Flash movie in a hidden field somewhere else on the page. That way it can still be indexed by web crawlers. Another method is to hand code Flash components to make the text and links inside more visible instead of using a content development tool such as Dreamweaver.

AJAX is another web 2.0 technology that is not easily accessible by web search robots. The problem with AJAX is that it is mostly comprised of client side javascript. This creates a problem because the java scripts only fire because of some sort of user interaction. Most web search robots are not capable of clicking a link or other HTML element so they can’t directly access the dynamic content being returned from the web server by an AJAX call. This limits the exposure to search engines of sites containing primarily AJAX. There are a few ways to increase the search engine visibility of an AJAX website.

1. Make sure that all links, menu items, and other structural content work with or without AJAX.
2. Make sure each page that you wish to be crawled has its own URL instead of each page dynamically loading on the same URL.
3. Load the basic content and text of the site statically if at all possibly instead of loading them dynamically through an AJAX call.
4. You can even take snapshots of dynamic pages and publish them as static pages with their own URL.
5. Strongly consider if the use of dynamic AJAX content really increases the usability of your site or if it just provides unnecessary visual appeal.

One way to compensate for technologies that aren’t strong as far as SEO is concerned is the utilization of an RSS feed along with your Flash and AJAX content. An RSS feed is comprised of an XML file, which at its core is just a text file surrounded by tags that define what the text between the tags actually mean. The text inside the tags can be easily indexed by web search robots. This is not a complete solution, but it can help to compensate for the use of other technologies that aren’t SEO friendly, but that you want to include in your site because of the functionality or appearance they add to your website.