However, you don’t see as many splash pages as you once did in the late 90′s early 00′s.

I believe that as HTML5 comes out and as Javascript libraries such as jQuery go more mainstream we will see more developers moving away from Flash in favour of these. Despite Google’s ability to read flash files I still believe that they do not help in terms of rankings either.

On web sites showing /using flash splash and all the tricks unless there’s some research and concept testing to support concepts, all seem to be constructed it appears by the self indulgent. And they may be the only person who understands whats going on ,on the site.and the only one who actually gets to see the site in full.

I think They are hoping everyone will be impressed etc etc while the Client is dreaming of floods of visitors and wondering why they get 1 hit a year.

And their most important person the consumer is off to another site.

After 30yrs in A&M at the big end of town, use moving graphics, or animated pieces IF it can be shown to show or inform the consumer of a benefit to them or as a demonstration of some facet of a product consumers use..( And put the Flash stuff in a HTML site, a search engine can find)

Flashy splash pages as a site opens presumably implying some corp or consumer WOW benefit are all lost when the following precedes such ‘fanfare’.

the quest for info by a surfer is further impeded by the ever present Flash loading sign ..which while it counts from 0 to 100..almost 40 % of web surfers ..move on before its gotten to 20..

I have seen some fantastic flash material but very little of it did much for the client or their products.and evenless for no visitors.- stats you can get on any site from several web surveillance sites.

You link to Bacardi’s website, which just proves my point. If the brand is strong enough, i.e. people *want* to visit your site because they saw it in a commercial, then Flash isn’t going to hurt it. Bacardi doesn’t depend on Google for their traffic. They spend tons of $ on traditional advertising to attract visitors.

I guess you already know that since summer 2008 both google and yahoo are reading flash content (swf file).
Furthermore, swfobject is a very good additional solution, in order flash site to serve the search engines with an alternate plain html site, sharing the same content.
So, as far as search engines concern, flash or html site makes no difference!

Remember, it’s not that Flash is such a bad thing; it’s Flash intro/splash pages which serve no informational purpose which I dislike.

Swfobject can solve all non-text issues like videos, oral contents, as much as flash intros. An alternate html site is texting out all contents. It’s a procedure fully accepted by google (as you may have observed, swfobject is suggested in the google codes area).

Splash/intro pages are not only flash. It can be also silverlight intro, video, or even a simple picture.
So how come your title indicate just flash?

But if you’re some local landscaping/gardening company and I find your site via a search for “landscaping in Morristown, NJ”, you better believe I will just hit back and go the next result down if I see some cheesy Flash splash page which takes 2 minutes to load and freezes the browser before I even see the “skip intro” link.

Remember, it’s not that Flash is such a bad thing; it’s Flash intro/splash pages which serve no informational purpose which I dislike.

At the beginning you claimed that flash is a bad idea and visitors will leave at once when they see it.
Few lines after you claim that there is no problem if our brand name is strong. Do you believe that a large-scale company would love to spend some money in order to see their clients go?
No, at this point you’re playing your game with some google guess, totally wrong according to dozens of millions flash sites indexed first for several keywords.

The real problem with people like you, is that you hate to learn new things in order to give your clients some real experience like this.

Flash is not going to heart you. Calm down; see some therapist, psychologist or something.

When you get your mind together, try learning new ways to improve your work. Aim to give the best, like clients ask for, not like html shortcut ways does.