The use of Flash for the creation of web sites has never been more popular. The number of web sites utilizing Flash for their content is expected to increase as time goes by. There are however some drawbacks to using only Flash for a web site. Although Flash web sites are very entertaining to the user, and significantly reduce browser compatibility issues, one must remember that Flash websites are only viewable to web browsers that have Flash software installed.

Portions of a web site created with Flash will not appear in browsers without installed Flash software. Although numerous web sites offer their viewers links with which to download Flash software, many viewers choose to ignore this option and seek other content which to view.

A significant disadvantage of using Flash is the inability of current search engines to crawl Flashed based content. Although this is changing, currently most search engines crawling the web are looking only for text based content. This means Flash based sites are very likely to be skipped by search engines and therefore remain un-indexed by search engines.

Flash files tend to be a large in size; therefore Flash sites take significantly longer to load than traditional websites. Given the short attention span of many web viewers, having a completely Flash based web site can be a significant disadvantage to content producers. Even the best website, with the most relevant content, will never be seen by users to grow impatient with the loading time of Flash.

Therefore it is best at this time to utilize Flash sparingly in web content. Although the advantages of Flash are many, it is better to have online content that is seen by as many users as possible. This simply is not an option for entirely Flashed based sites today.

Despite the obvious advantages and graphical attractiveness of Flash, Flash technology is simply too handicapped for widespread implementation today. As Flash continues to improve this may change, however, online content producers are advised to use Flash sparingly today.