The Pros & Cons to Pure Flash Websites

Over the last few years, there has always been the dispute between website designers and clients on websites developed completely in Flash. While they are definitely visually eye catching, they also have a strong negative effect.

Some Pros of having a Flash Website Design:

• Eye catching
• Interactive
• Easy to integrate certain features such as sound loops
• Reasonably Fast Loading
  

Some Cons of having a Flash Website Design:

• NOT Search Engine Friendly. Search engine bots are unable to view the text within a flash website. This is by far the most crucial.
• Difficult to update. Whenever there is an update, the original source file (.fla) needs to be edited.
• Sometimes not user friendly and difficult to navigate.
• Browser compatibility issues - Not all users have flash installed in their browser. If flash is not installed, your site will not be displayed.
• Longer time to develop.

There is a perfect median to having Flash in a website by integrating it into the web page itself as opposed to creating a strictly Flash website. This way, the website can have the same eye candy but at the same time, be search engine friendly and user friendly.