Ranking Flash is something I've banged my head against since I started. Flash is great for design! It's pretty and can do almost anything. But, a website designed all in flash doesn't exist.
Flash Web Design
When a website is built completely in Flash—pages, links and navigation—most 'crawlers' can't see it. You have a beautiful design, but your content is invisible. And in the world of search, content is paramount.
If you build Flash into a website, you get the bells and whistles as well as content on the page. The Flash is still a content hole, but it can be mitigated and worked around. Everyone wants an eye-catching design, but, from the optimization viewpoint, useful content that gets and keeps customers gives the most value. Using design to highlight content and keep users interactive is the balance every website design should carry out.
Alternatives to Flash
There are even better options. One we like is JavaScript. It provides a lot of the features of Flash and gives you the option of using readable content. Plus, it is visible and functional on all those devices that don't support Flash. So, interactive design with readable content that is visible to more users = win, win, win.
Of course, A LOT of people still want Flash. Whether it's to display their portfolio or functionality that just can't be done another way, there are clients who use Flash. Does that mean they give up search ranking? Well, no, I just have my work cut out for me.
First, I need to pull as much content as I can to offer as an alternative to flash. This does two things:
1. We now have content that can be crawled
2. There is information to display for those people who can't or won't use flash.
Then, I offer up as much meta information as I can. I submit files and use tags on as many pages as I can get my hands on. Finally, I use directories and social media to not only give links to the website, but to get as much information out there as possible.
We are all happy to hear about Google reading flash as it has read PDFs. Still, Bing and Yahoo aren't catching up, and you still have to keep the limitations in mind when optimizing Flash. So I continue to point as much content at the Flash pages as I can, all the while humming to myself "I don't exist when you don't see me. I don't exist when you're not here..."