"No, we can’t do that in Flash. We just won’t get good SEO."
"Actually Sir…we can and we will.”
I’ve had that line in my back pocket for years and I’m finally able to use it. A couple days ago, ars technica announced that Google and Yahoo we’re developing the means to crawl all the lovely swfs out there.
“This announcement has been a long time coming, as Flash developers have been wishing for ways to make their content searchable for close to a decade. Adobe acknowledges this in its announcement, saying that although search engines are able to index static text and links within Flash SWF files, "[Rich Internet Applications] and dynamic Web content have been generally difficult to fully expose to search engines because of their changing states—a problem also inherent in other RIA technologies."
It will probably be sometime before the crawling of swfs is as effective as a traditional html page. Initially, the spiders won’t be able to crawl pictures or video. The news is nevertheless extremely encouraging.
In the end, this is a huge win for Flash designers and developers. I would also predict the demand for these skill sets to rise considerably. There are no longer any excuses or explanations for why they had to go with the AJAX guy.