While I think you make some valid points, not all ...

2007-10-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

While I think you make some valid points, not all of them are true, or accurate. Let me rebutt.

You said "While it may look visually appealing (to some of you) these types of designs have multiple flaws. In the end you will pay more for the design , loose thousands of dollars from lost prospects and have to deal with the hourly fees your provider charges for custom flash updates."

1) Flash sites are just as prone to error or poor coding as their HTML counterparts.

2) Sites done IN Flash, or with Flash elements, aren't inherently any more expensive than sites done using standards compliant HTML, or AJAX.

3) Hourly fees are hourly fees, whether the site is done with HTML or Flash.

Flash is expensive
Your provider is going to charge hundreds of dollars for the slightest change to your flash design. Most car dealer websites based on flash do not have content management systems. So if you want to change the verbiage on the homepage or add a graphic be prepared to pay a flash developer anywhere from $ 100-200 an hour for custom work.

4) Again, developing a robust Flash-based website is no more inherently expensive than a standard HTML website. In fact, due to the nature of Flash, with it's object oriented approach, Flash apps can in many cases be far less expensive to develop than their HTML counterparts.

Flash is invisible to the search engines

A quick Google search for the term 'does google index flash content' brings up over 130,000 results, including the number one ranking for industry expert Dave Taylor's website. He responds thusly: "Yes, Google can parse through the text contained within a .swf file and present that information in a Google search. But due to the fact that an entire website can be contained in a single .swf file, whereas a traditional HTML site may consist of hundreds of individual pages, the weightings and rankings given to certain pages may not be accurately portrayed in Google's results."

So yes, Flash-based sites might not be "as good" as their HTML counterparts, but they still rank, and in some cases can be at the top of the heap for their respective keywords.

Limited Search Engine Saturation

Can't argue with you there. Sites that are completely Flash-based aren't going to have that wide result site that plain HTML sites can achieve. However, with proper setup and management (which let's face it...any website that actually cares about it's search engine ranking is going to be 'working' their site) even Flash sites can achieve deep and robust search results.

That Flash is a little too Flashy

Flash is no more the culprit in this, than is HTML. Designers will be designers, and clients will be clients. They're going to want flashy things whether they're done with Flash, or with an animated GIF and auto-playing WAV audio clips.

Too Long to Load and Stubborn

You're right, some Flash sites are too heavy in file size. This is more a function of poorly designed Flash sites than Flash itself. Flash file sizes can be remarkably light due to it's inherent vector nature (native Flash objects are simple mathematic calculations rather than photos or images). I've seen plenty of HTML apps that total up to hundreds and hundreds of k of javascript, and css, and images, and even actual HTML code.

My conclusion is that while some of your points are valid, it appears that you're focusing more on a small number of poorly designed Flash websites, rather than debating the real differences between a "well designed" website of either Flash or HTML origin.

Thank you for the article, and for allowing me to respond.

Comments on Find Local Car Dealers in the US: Forever Flawed: The Downside of Flash Web Design

While I think you make some valid points, not all ...