In July, we reported that Google is now able to better crawl and index content within Flash files. Since then, time has gone on but most SEOs continue to recommend that you stay away from Flash when building a search engine friendly site.
A new Google Groups thread takes a new look at how Google handles Flash content. In the thread Beu was able to bring back a former Googler, Bergy, to respond to some of these questions.
So if you are interested in getting into the details of how Google may index Flash content, check out the Google Groups thread.
Bergy's general recommendation is still to avoid using Flash when possible:
My advice is the same advice I've given for a good long while: Build your site first in HTML. Style it using CSS. If you must, do simple user interaction in Javascript. If you cannot resist, include multimedia content in Flash. However, remember that each of the standards evolved into their role for a reason, and while other technologies have fallen by the wayside, Flash fills the niche for highly interactive and multi-media experiences on the web. Don't use it for something when there's already a standard whose output can be easily parsed, easily processed, and whose openness makes its processing easier for browsers and searchbots.
Forum discussion at Google Groups.
