I've just read that "If your website uses frames, javascript or flash you should be aware that search engines don't read these." (http://www.htmlbasictutor.ca/search-eng … -pages.htm). I am not sure I understand what it means.

I've just switched from regular text to html on the front page of my testing website. The reason is because I wanted the text to be justified, which VSD doesn't allow us to do.

My question is: Will search engines read that text or not?

Testing address: http://www.birdandsquirrel.com

Here's a test: open the web page in your browser and then choose "view source" to display the code that's generating your page. That's all text, and that's the text the search engines are going to see. The reason frames don't get searched is because that info comes from somewhere else, and you won't see it when you view the source--neither will the bots.

The answer to your question, by the way, is yes, the bots will see text that's in HTML boxes. It's when the text gets exported as images that you'll have problems. Again, if you can view page source and read the text there, it's good.

Spinny's rule applies across the board for search engine optimization. The bots only read the html that is connected to your home page (or sitemap page if you prefer). Therefore, they won't read flash either because if you view source you will notice the only html is <embed>. This is why if you want to use flash use it in conjunction with html (say for your links, which are the most important). I typically use everything in moderation, but try to use as much html as possible for SEO purposes.

I am not sure if this clarified or made it more unclear.

Spinny, that's good news.

Also, if I understand, the text that is linked to "In The News Oct 2009" won't be read because it's been exported as an image (JPG).

Thank you!

Eric, I'm not sure I understand what you talked about but when you say "use as much html as possible", you answered my question too.

Thank you!

Lucie,

Alas my firewall at work has decreed I cannot view your site from here. Yes, if text is being exported as image because of special effects or you're using a non-web-safe font, the searchers won't see it--neither will people with vision impairments. The method for mitigating that is to use the "alt" tag. VSD has a box in the image properties that lets you specify what text goes there. That text will appear in the web page as part of the image definition, and both vision-impaired browsers and bots WILL see that text. When faced with text-as-image I just make the alt text read exactly the same as the original text.

Spinny,

Unfortunately, it's a newspaper article (yes, I had permission from the publisher). I don't know how I can work my way around this one. It's too much text for the "alt" tag I'm afraid. This article was a PDF file but I had to crop and save as JPG because as PDF the image was very small after cropping. People told me they didn't want to enlarge the screen, it should be 75-100% already when you load it. I should mention that I only have the free version of Adobe Reader. It doesn't allow me to modify the document. For a reason I don't know Mac cropped it. Then I used PSP to enlarge and save as JPG.

I used the "alt" tag wherever I can. You told me about it a few days ago.

Thanks again.

Whoops, sorry about the repeat lecture.

Sometimes I lose track.

Spinny,
Gee, don't be sorry!!!
I mentioned it because I wanted you to know that I read and followed your advice.
Thank you again.

Hiya Lucie,

Try using the Alt tag with just a summary of the article maybe? At least that would put some key words in there as well as filling the Optimization of that image so that it's read correctly by the bots. Just a thought