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Thread: Search on search found zip...

  1. #1
    Senior Member evolbeagle's Avatar
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    Doing a search on whether you can search in KoolMoves/Flash-made sites turned out to be a waste of time. Since people are always responding to questions by suggesting that the questioner do a search, that term shows up in a lot of posts.

    So here's my question: If you build a site with KM, is there anyway to allow visitors to search the site? Is this one of those things that might be possible with Flash (and it's more developed scripting)? Or is it just not possible at all in a flash site?

    Thanks

  2. #2
    Junior Member
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    As far as I know the Flash movie (.swf) portion of a web site is not searchable no matter what tool you use to create it. That is why it is important to have seachable items in the HTML that calls your Flash movie. Think of it as underware. If you want it to say Kalvin Kline then have it writen there. Many non-flash sites have massive amounts of information that is not visable to human visitors, but is in a form only search engines can see. So this is not a new concept. Which means, there are many good HTML books on the art of keeping search engines happy invisably. Hope this helps.

  3. #3
    Senior Member evolbeagle's Avatar
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    Yes, that does help. It's about what I thought was the situation. Thanks.

  4. #4
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    That's one of the chief compliants of Flash only sites.

    Flash does not use Meta tags or titles or even searchable text. Now if you divide your site into multiple HTML documents with the flash embedded along with meta and title tags at the top like a considerate designer should then there is no problem. The problem is that a lot of Flash designers do not know HTML (which is a shame becuase the basics-HTML structure and tag layout and basic tags- can be learned in 2-8 hours depending on where you are on the learning curve.). That is why they advocate all Flash sites, becuase they do not know how the web works. An all flash site cannot be referenced with a spider or a bot becuase it lacks a meta info and it lacks a title so it won't list nicely in the users browser.




  5. #5
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    Right!!!

    A technique I have heard used, is using javascript to search the site, have each Flash page as Johnie said is an html page embeded with the flash, with searchable html, then using javascript to search the html. Don't know javascript that well, but.....Johnie? Any idea how to do this.

    Brad

  6. #6
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    The easy way:

    Go and get a premade search script from one of those DHTML sites. Then call the javascript functions from the Get Url command using Javascript:functionname();

    The hard way:

    Learn Javascript and write your own script. The best introductory tutorial on the web can be found at http://www.webmonkey.com . Internet.com also has some tuts on Javascript. I also recommend a reference book for javascript. Javascript in a nutshell is okay.

  7. #7
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    Thanks Johnie-

    I am slowly learning Javascript. Having trouble though, don't have a lot of time!!
    I think I am going to take it at college, that is the best way for me to learn something, then I will have to make the time. A tip for everyone- never quit college, you could be in your 90s and go back to college and learn something(are then any really old Flash animators out there???)

    Brad

  8. #8
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    When I create a web site with mostly graphic content, to give something for search engines to crunch on I use frames with <NOFRAMES> and </NOFRAMES> tags with embedded <BODY> and </BODY> tags. Inside the <BODY> tag I place about 300 words of descriptive text.

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