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HTML or Flash for your business website? Which is best for sales?
Y.T.B. (Tech News) Reporter Don Jasper
November 21st 2011
Differences between HTML and Flash sites are huge, 75% of people don’t know they have the wrong type of site for their needs. Many companies look for functionality or aesthetics when developing a website. Is there anything else missing that a company could want in a site? How about how the site will react with marketing, keywords, tags, and search engines?
Depending on the type of website you develop you could be facing many daunting problems with search engine related content. Depending on your choice of Flash or HTML you could be facing many unexpected issues after shelling out thousands of dollars for design. Flash technology depends on embedding tags, keywords, and text within images while HTML is dependant on coding. Since the development of the Internet, Hyper Text Markup Language or HTML4 has been the first widely used and most popular method of site development and early search engine technology and programming. Although HTML was not the first language used for development, the first methods like File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and Gopher Protocol were less functional to advancements thus less attractive to the creative types. Many other methods of design and language followed like Active Server Page (ASP), JavaScript, Ajax, and more.
One reason the masses followed HTML more than other languages was the creation of search engine programming and how they indexed websites to be found. In 1993, there were a few hundred websites around and most were universities, long before they were created there was Archie. Archie was the first search engine created by Alan Emtage, a student at McGill University in Montreal in 1990. It was originally named “Archives,” but was then shortened to “Archie”. This was developed with the concepts in mind of Gerard Salton and his teams at Harvard and Cornell initial indexing research in the 60’s into the 90’s.
Processing the information from a website has a long history and many years of development and many reasons. HTML was the most widely used method of design for many years and search engine development closely followed this trend. Hyper Text Markup Language was the language search engines heavily depended on to retrieve information from sites. Hypertext Markup Language easily specifies document titles, headings, and paragraphs on sites while Flash makes it hard to retrieve this information; in many cases it is impossible. Large companies like Yahoo! are working to develop methods to make “data mining” more efficient with new technologies. Yahoo!’s Research Director Ricardo Baeza-Yates says, “The main three goals for me are to explore the potential of all web-related information, to improve current systems, find new ideas for products or services, and discover new ways to analyze information, for many, many different purposes. Also, to leverage the different backgrounds and expertise here at the Yahoo! Research Center in order to obtain a fresh look, a new perspective and a different angle that will allow us to come up with new breakthroughs around existing problems.” While many engines are trying to catch up with the changing methods of development not everyone knows the problems of Flash compared to HTML.
Some issues with a veteran surfer since the 90’s would be that your learned surfing experience with browsers does not work anymore on flash sites. Many times since flash technology is based on a series of movements or images and text in movement your navigation is mainly based on a single page while the flash element is what is actually transitioning to look like the page has changed. Because of this your browsers back button does not work anymore. Surfers used to navigate on a HTML site are many times frustrated with this issue. Copy and paste of text no longer works in a flash site and increasing text size to make it easier to read no longer works as well. Although the development of flash is much more complicated than HTML it is often found as an annoyance to many people.
"Some annoyance and problems with flash technology include blocks in browsers because of mass advertising in flash/java format. Because flash technology is a method used to make images in motion or converted video into an advertisement you can find a Flash Blocker or Ad Blocker in every browser as an add-on or plug in. Since a lot of surfers don’t like to be bothered with pop-up flash ads or annoying flash transitions they end up blocking your website from being viewed. Another huge issue of having a flash site compared to HTML is the maintenance. HTML is a very compatible and modifiable language while Flash coding requires different and lengthy coding that is much more expensive to accomplish. Testing of edits and timelines are often required to ensure a working site with flash while a simple publish of HTML is required to update a site with this language" says Chief Design Studios.com C.E.O. Wes Gibson . “75% of our clients don’t know the cost and implications of having a flash website. The same amount does not know that their current flash site is all wrong for their business. Clients hear the words flash and need to have it because it looks more advanced. Clients know they want an animated site but almost 100% of them don’t know how it will affect their positions in engines. This is why a splash page is needed on mostly all effectively indexed sites.” Mr. Gibson is an industry expert who has managed accounts for large fortune 500 companies for a D.C. based firm in the past, now handels many smaller companies design and marketing needs.
A “splash page” or “landing page” is a HTML page attached to the main URL like www.abcd.com and gives the visitor the option to choose visiting the flash site or HTML, sometimes just the option to enter the flash site with a button that normally says “enter here”. This gives the developers the chance to attach keywords, tags, and text content to the page while the rest of the flash site cannot be indexed more than likely.
In conclusion, check with a local company when developing site ideas. Know what you want in a website, if animation is needed to be successful or if marketing is more important. Cost is much different between the two and long-term maintenance is much higher with flash technology. Make sure to keep up with trending annoyances with websites found by users so you can develop a successful idea around the consensus. While flash sites are fun and offer technology that can be use for major aesthetic purposes, HTML offers many new technologies while being the most effective in search engine optimization and compatibility. HTML is also one of the original formats of web design, the main weight on search engine development.
Sources and research resources:
Cornell University early search engine research and development - http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/Department/Annual95/Faculty/Salton.html
Interview with Yahoo! Research Director Ricardo Baeza-Yates http://www.ysearchblog.com/2006/10/16/a-chat-with-yahoo-research-director-ricardo-baeza-yates/
Search engine history information- http://www.searchenginehistory.com/
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