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What is a Splash Page?

Splash pages are intro pages that are designed to impress the computer users. While the idea may be good, the aim is bad. Splash pages are a negative on both ends to the computer user and to search engines.

Why Splash Pages are Bad for Usability:

You and I may both have broadband. A significant portion of those connected to the internet do not have broadband and flash introduction can take 30 seconds or more on slower connections. You better hope that you have already been established as the premium source for products or information in your field if you expect people to wait a long time just to see your intro.

Another thing about flash that makes users angry is that some site require they view the intro every time they go to the website.

Why Splash Pages are Bad for Search Engine Rankings

Even if your user does not mind waiting 30 seconds or a minute to see your introduction it is a shame that they will probably not even find it. Many search engines can not effectively navigate through and index flash. This means that you have little to no content to optimize and more than likely will not be able to achieve top listings.

Even when search engines do index flash (as some are starting to do) it will still be hard to value pictures highly in a word based value system when referencing it to words.

Even worse than Splash being hard to navigate is the fact that splash offers limited content to search engines. Even if you extracted all 15 or 20 associated words, what could qualify that word selection to make that page more qualifying than the other billions of web pages?

Tips for Using Flash

• DON'T USE FLASH - or -
• If you must use flash ensure users do not have to see it every time they come to your site.
• Place some text on the page so that it may get indexed.
• Make a static site map & link to the site map on the home page.
• Build a strong linking campaign with most of the inbound links containing your primary home page keywords.