I’ve read a lot of information on this as well and Google has not said that it would penalize anyone for utilizing this method but they will penalize people for using deceitful methods to push content.

Since the content IS viewable to those without javascript enabled or Flash installed, it does NOT violate Google’s TOS

There is one thread that has some information that is useful (be sure to read the follow-up comments).

One thing to keep an eye out for is an ACTUAL example of Google penalizing someone. I’ve not seen an example yet and this method is utilized through thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of sites.

Doug

I would absolutely agree with you. Flash intensive sites make for a fantastic user experience, but the benefits of having dynamic content indexed by a search engine far outweigh it. How great can a site be if no one can find it?

That said, great Flash programmers are able to overcome this by utilizing HTML or textual content from the pages in the Flash content… so the content can still be structured and optimized for search engines AND you can, perhaps, have a back-end for modifying that content.

SWF Object simply swaps the content of the div with the actual flash at run-time. You can use it to pass content as well, though. See the advanced notes of the sample code. Since it’s passed as a parameter, though, I don’t believe it would benefit as much as HTML content itself.

So – to respond to your comment… it ‘could’ be done. However, I’ve rarely seen a Flash developer skilled or motivated enough to do it. Personally, I would avoid it.

Thanks!