I find that this is a generalization that is not true. But what do I know? ;)

It's very much like the difference between using images on a site versus a site composed of pages with nothing but images.

My thought, too, is that usually pages on a Flash website share the same layout; still, you might have to sit through seconds upon seconds of something drawing something out, along with sound effects, in order to get the page content — and this is on every page. Thing is, once I've clicked on a link, it's clear you've got my interest — so it's time to stop the drawing and sound effects and just let me get to the content.

At least, that's my thought. :)

Also with ajax and mootools (and other js effects libs) you can now acomplish quite alot without resorting to flash.

*last moan* – when will flash actually push the browser scroll bar down, and not having to scroll text within the flash .swf itself ?

Surely that would be the most idiotic thing ever.

My comments were based on the Can Google read Flash content? thread at the SearchEngineWatch forums:

According to Mike Grehan's interviews with Google staff, Google can read Flash – but generally doesn't care much for it due to little text content, which is important for document matching.

That's just an indication that Google *was* reading Flash content. There's also the above quote from Matt Cutts, which indicates that Google *can* read actual Flash content (to whatever degree it can decipher that content).

While I like Flash, my personal thought is that a Flash-only site is not so great for users or search engine rankings, although you can do some things to optimize a Flash site for search engines.

What are your thoughts in this regard?