Flash websites definitely have their benefits and allow a designer to create an animated website that generally looks better than most HTML based websites.
However, Flash websites have many drawbacks and we believe these out weigh the benefits.
Drawbacks of a Flash website
A Flash Website on the Apple iPad
- A Flash website will not display on a mobile browser such as the iPad or iPhone. The person will see an entirely blank black screen when the try to surf a Flash website. This is especially troublesome if someone finds a restaurant on Yelp or some other website and tries to click through but is greeted with a black screen. There are ways to work around this issue and we will talk about them in a future article.
- A Flash website cannot be optimized for searching like an HTML website can. Search engines can’t read a Flash website like humans can and therefore can’t index any of the content. Generally, Flash websites rank very poorly in the search engine results. For a business that relies on the internet for leads this can be a showstopper!
- In addition to these two major reasons we feel that Flash websites are difficult to maintain and are not very scalable when you need to modify the layout and design.
So, you might want to think twice before investing in that Flash website. It might look great, but chances are it is not the right solution for your business.