I just got really excited to see the headline How to Make Flash Content SEO Friendly pop up in my Google reader. I immediately got excited that Adobe had found a way to embedd alt text directly into Flash files. Finally, I could add a script to the Flash
Image via Wikipedia
demo videos on my corporate site, add alt text to the images in the banners, provide accessibility to impaired visitors and make the search engines happy, all from within Flash.
The hope didn’t last long. As soon as I got to
SWFObject 2.0 is an open source project that detects whether or not a browser supports Flash and then serves the appropriate version (Flash or HTML text) of the website based on its detection.
I was ready stop reading. This method is nothing new or innovative. Its effective, but it doesn’t single-source the Flash and html text versions of your site.
Maybe next time, Adobe? Will CS5 take into consideration accessibility and SEO and provide a single source to create content for those that can see and hear and those that can’t?
