Dawn Shears

Be sure that your web developer creates your site’s navigation system in html and css, not Flash. While Flash (animated) navigation systems are pretty to look at they represent a roadblock for search engines. Why? Most search engines use spiders or ‘bots to index your sites pages. The only way they can crawl from page to page is to follow html links. Your navigation system is the richest source of links, generally, on your website. The more links, the better, too.

Page links contained in Flash objects are invisible to crawlers. If there are no links search engine crawlers to follow they are only able to index the main site page and your rankings will be severely affected.

You can check to see how many of you site’s pages are being indexed by using the search term: link:insertyoursitehere.com on Google or other search engines.

Results should show up for all of your site’s pages…otherwise you may have some kind of problem with the site that is creating a barrier for search engines.

You can overcome the Flash issue by removing the Flash and putting in coded links. If this isn’t an option, be sure to create links somewhere else in code (perhaps text links at the bottom) so the bots and spiders have something to “see.” Also, putting a text site map up with links to every page is a great idea. Google also has some developer’s tools that can help get all your pages indexed…

Flash is great, I use it a lot, but never for navigation systems and never, never will I create an entire site in Flash. You end up with a pretty site that is a nightmare to update and who’s content and links are completely invisible to search engines.