David and Katherine Goodwin

One of the delegates on the marketing course was from a media/video production company based near Telford. In between the two sessions we had some homework, and in a round about way, I ended up emailing them pointing out that their website wouldn't be indexed by Google (and other search engines).

What's wrong with their website? It's 100% flash based and :

• It's not obvious that you can click on parts of it (at least in normal websites links are somehow set out from everything else)
• It's not obvious which bits of the page are clickable - can I click on the clock/goldfish/stereo under the TV/bookcase?
• You can't click directly on the words at the bottom of the page (but oddly you can 'tab' through them)
• Why is so screen real estate wasted? Why do I have to scoll around within the flash applet?
• It probably won't work for anyone who doesn't have the right version of flash installed
• It won't appear very well in any search engine - as all the content is embedded within the flash binary file which can't be indexed
• It's not accessible (what if I'm using a screen reader?)

And no doubt they probably think that the website doesn't work to attract new customers - because no one can find it through a search engine, unless they already know their name!

I can't help but think they'd have been far better off having a "normal" HTML website with embedded samples of the work they've done.

</rant>

Technorati Tags: flash crap website