HTML 5 Benefits SEO without Flash
By Dave Maloney
For about the past 10 years, the primary language for the internet as we know it has been HTML 4.0. Still a work in progress, the newest update to Hyper Text Markup Language, HTML 5, is being designed to singlehandedly handle what HTML4 could only do with added-on third party software, such as Adobe Flash.
HTML 5 promises more flexibility for developers which means more functionality for users, and more interoperability between browsers (Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, Windows Explorer) and devices (phones, computers, Ipads - anything that can connect to the web). Webpages will load faster and can be indexed and searched more efficiently with HTML 5's updated source code tags and element structure. For SEO, cleaner code is great news!
Probably the most notable of HTML 5 benefits would have to be its ability to embed audio and video files without having to rely on third party plug-ins (Quicktime, Windows Media Player, Flash). Up until now, you need to have at least one of these on your computer (or device) to view any sites with any video or animation. (You may not know it, but it's in there.) Most mobile devices can't handle the extra software, so sites that look fine on your computer will not work the same on your smartphone. Some phones claim they are Flash compatible, but at the expense of constant crashing and at least half its battery life!
Probably the largest video collection site on the web, YouTube, already supports HTML 5, so you can watch without Flash. With HTML 5, video/sound/animation/interactive graphics can all be on your site, with no dependency on other software and no limitations on the receiving end: it's all right there in the code. Which brings us back to SEO: if search engines can read it, it can be optimized - unlike Flash!
But don't worry about going through the trouble of having your site rewritten from scratch; HTML5 is also backwards compatible. And although most web browsers are already becoming HTML 5 compliant, it's still a ways away from becoming the new standard.