sIFR is a cool way rendering text using flash and javascript. If javascript is not supported by the browser then it beatifully degrades as plain html text

Mike Davidson,founder and CEO of Newsvine.com is co-inventor of Scalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR)

Since sIFR is similar to cloaking , Search engines such as google might penalize your website for cloaking.

But in Best uses of flash Google openly recommends usage of sIFR.

sIFR homepage Sample page

I was surprised to find that Google reads text inside flash swf movies

Follow these steps to find out how

1. goto http://www.google.com/search?q=filetype%3Aswf
2. i landed on http://www.siderpiemonte.it/index.swf
3. unforturnately its a non–english (italian) website
4. giorgio vercelli is a text inside the flash movie
5. now i go to google and type giorgio vercelli
6. I can see www.siderpiemonte.it/index.swf in the search results with the term “giorgio vercelli “ highlighted

Is it not great ? Soon RIAs using flash will be a common place if search engines can read flash movies

note : I thought google reads only the first frame so I clicked on a button which took me to some other frame .

Now google for rete elettrosaldata listino extra 2002

I can see www.siderpiemonte.it/index.swf in the search results

Aint this cool ?

Check out what GOOG has to say about this