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greenoak
05-09-2011, 09:26 PM
how about this for a front page? Welcome To Magnolia Pearl Online! - Official Site (http://www.magnoliapearl.com) a fun TEXAN

Russ in Vancouver
05-09-2011, 09:41 PM
Yup, thats pretty cool

MyITGuy
05-24-2011, 10:55 AM
Nice, but the site is loosing any SEO capabilities as the search engines cannot read the text or crawl any of the pages.

Additionally, the issue with flash loading the page is going to drive some people away...I don't want to wait 10+ seconds for a page to load and I'm sure others may agree.

Dan Furman
05-25-2011, 01:27 PM
black screen, music starts, percentage loaded...

Buh bye.

vangogh
05-25-2011, 01:44 PM
I agree once the site loads it looks nice, however to reiterate what MyITGuy and Dan said, here's what I see when loading the page.

118

Because Flash slows up my computer I have it blocked by default. Yes it's a pretty site, but how many people might never see it. Just something to consider.

Once I click the Flash button and the site loads though it is a really attractive site.

Spider
05-25-2011, 05:39 PM
Just to throw my hat in the ring on this one - I clicked Ann's link and, by my watch, I had the page, music, the whole thing downloaded in about 3 seconds. I am pretty sure I have cleared cookies since the first time I looked at it a couple of weeks ago. This computer is hardwired to my router. I also searched for it on my old, much slower machine (not previously used for this site), with wireless connection, and it downloaded in 8 seconds. Not too shabby, I would have thought.

Surely, one could overcome the SE indexing problem by loading a flash window into an iframe surrounded with SEO'd html - which would not only give the SE-robots something to read but impatient surfers, too.

vangogh
05-25-2011, 06:19 PM
That still doesn't work for all the people who block Flash.

I think your 3 seconds is better than it will be for most people, though I will say this Flash does load faster than some sites. I also notice there's a different Flash file for each page, which means search engines will see all the pages instead of just one, which is good where search engines are concerned though it does mean having to load a new Flash file on every page. Some pages load reasonably fast for me and some are taking a long time.

Until search engines can actually read the content inside a Flash file, using Flash to build websites isn't the best idea (assuming you want search traffic). There are workarounds to the seo problems, but they aren't ideal.

Keep in mind too that iPhones, iPads, and iPods don't display Flash at all. Those tablets that do display Flash to this point do so poorly.

I'm not saying you can't use Flash, but you should be aware of the downside.

greenoak
05-25-2011, 06:22 PM
i dont know about flash issues....but i love the art part....she totally gets her brand across....its a girl thang!!!!...i did hate the wait....

vangogh
05-25-2011, 06:27 PM
Ann the site itself is beautiful. No question about that. It is well done. Using Flash is still a bit iffy though. It might work for her, but I'd bet for most sites the Flash costs them more business than it helps.

greenoak
05-25-2011, 07:17 PM
what is flash?

vangogh
05-25-2011, 07:45 PM
Flash is the technology being used to produce the pages. Adobe currently owns Flash. Years ago there wasn't a good way to create and display video and animation on web pages and Flash was the best solution. It's still probably the best solution for some things today, though in the last couple of years html the language behind all web pages is able to do much of what Flash can do. Not quite to the extent Flash does it, but in time html5 (the latest version of html) will probably replace Flash for most things.

Right now to play Flash movies you need the Flash player plugin installed on your browser. Most all browsers have it installed by default and if not it's easy enough to add. Unfortunately plugins (not just for Flash) have a tendency to slow the performance of the browser. That's why I have Flash turned off by default. If I run too many Flash movies (usually only a few) my computer gets very slow and often needs to be restarted.

Lots of things web developers have wanted to do over the years could only be done with Flash. Flash technology has been a great thing however there have always been some problems associated with it where websites are concerned.

Most Flash sites (not the one you linked to) run the entire site inside a single Flash movie. That meant the entire site was really a single page. You couldn't bookmark pages within the Flash or use your back button and as far as search engines were concerned your site was a single page. Also search engines (and other machines) can't read the content inside the Flash movie, which make it more difficult for Flash websites to rank well.

Some of the above problems can be overcome, but Flash still isn't considered the best way to build a website. It's usually better to run some Flash movies inside certain web pages where you need the animation. However as you can see Flash sites can look beautiful and throughout the years Flash could offer more interaction than regular html and css. Usually for an all Flash site to work marketing wise you would need to promote the site through means other than search engines. That's not always easy for us smaller businesses to do.

Hopefully that answers the question.

@Frederick - I'm kind of surprised you're defending Flash given how much you want websites to be fluid and flexible. Flash is pretty much the antithesis of flexibility.

tylerhutchinson
05-25-2011, 07:55 PM
Took about 20-30 seconds to load. After about 30% I wanted to click back. I lost all interest in looking at it. The page itself is beautiful but I think a lot of people are like me in if I have to wait for the page I will click and find another site.

I would suggest moving away from flash. Use Photoshop to build the background so it still has that nice look. Use plugins to add the music and the effects. By doing this also you can add links and create other pages that will in turn help your SEO as I am sure this is not hitting well with Google.

I do not mean for that to sound rude so please do not take it the wrong way. I wish you nothing but success in your venture.

greenoak
05-25-2011, 08:26 PM
thanks for the info vg...so that kind of animation is what the flash was? .....
tyler...i dont have any connection with the site and was just admiring the artistic presentation.....imho, she hit the target almost perfectly.and thats probably why she is such a huge success..her stuff is fabulous to her fans.....apparantly the tekk side is bad according to some here......i have no idea...
and i am not even working on my site at this time....but i would love to have one that exciting and original and that tuned into my thing.......but faster!!!lol.....

vangogh
05-25-2011, 09:15 PM
Ann a lot of the animation and even regular video you've seen over the years was built using Flash to some degree. Not all, but it's been the most popular way. Recently regular video can use other means and only falls back to using Flash for devices that can't handle the new way.

I agree with you about her site. I'll be honest it too me a little while to realize what the site was about, but it is beautiful and I'm sure it hits the target for her fans. Also since she has fans and they likely know here and she has other means to reach them using Flash isn't as big of a problem. For you and me it is because it would means spending more money to advertise, but if we're getting visitors through other means maybe we don't need to worry so much about advertising. Usually it's the bigger brands like Nike and Pepsi that can make all Flash sites work.

Her site is actually done better than most Flash sites too. I just checked it on my iPad and the site works. It doesn't use Flash on the iPad so you don't see the animation, but the imagery is still there. If you want check her site on your iPad and compare the difference. What you see missing on the iPad is the stuff that needed Flash, though online the whole thing is built using Flash.


but i would love to have one that exciting and original and that tuned into my thing.......but faster

You really can even without the Flash. Much of what you see on her site could be reproduce with code and a few images. What would be harder to do would be the animation, but even that can now be done with html and css code for most browsers. We're still waiting on Internet Explorer to catch up a bit, though it's slowly getting there.

If you ever see me or Harold or anyone else talking about not liking Internet Explorer it's because we can do a lot of great things with code on other browsers that don't work on IE. In the last few years web designers have started to develop sites that work in all browsers, but for those browsers that can handle the extras they get a few extras.

facility
06-09-2011, 10:27 AM
Jupp looks nice but I agree with the others. Taking to long to load, and that's when I usually bounce.

Paper Shredder Clay
06-13-2011, 01:28 PM
Agree Seo is hurt by it, but they can make up for this by submitting sitemaps to major search engines. Also I won't like this because chances are I am on an iPad or iPhone, when I am just "surfing."

vangogh
06-13-2011, 03:39 PM
The problem with Flash though is often that there's only one url so a sitemap wouldn't help get more content indexed. That's not the case with the site Ann linked, which has actually done what they can where seo is concerned. XML sitemaps exist to help search engines find pages of your site that they couldn't find through the usual means, which are links. They don't help those pages to rank better and if you've developed your site well you don't need to use an xml sitemap.

If it means anything I've never used an xml sitemap and I've also never had issues getting pages indexed.