I personally don't like Flash unless it's a chart or tutorial. But I have noticed more sites with it.

Do you think full flash sites are more popular now or less then say 5 years ago?

I see more flash elements in web design but not many fully flash websites.

I definitely see an increase in flash work for magazines and presentations. I think people don't go for an all out flash website because of possible handicaps in SEO.

I think full flash websites are less prolific, but they're definitely still there and getting better. Large companies are using them for some pretty awesome product campaign websites, but it is becoming less likely you'll just stumble across one in normal browsing.

Originally Posted by JSTYLISH

I think people don't go for an all out flash website because of possible handicaps in SEO.

I'd agree this is pretty much why. People would rather build stuff in Flash than deal with learning HTML and CSS and maybe even some JS to achieve the same visual effects, but they're coming to realize that Flash is a handicap more than a benefit when working with a full site.

I agree with JSYLISH I do see quite a bit of use of flash in specific elements of many sites, but really as far as the sites I frequent, I hardly ever see a whole site that is dedicated to the use of flash for their complete page. I imagine load time and possible some indexing issues come into play here. Now that Google has made it public that they are going to use load time as a part of the ranking algorythm I am sure more will be taking this one into consideration.

I believe a site completely done in Flash is a very bad idea, but I do believe Flash is pretty popular. It is very beneficial also, when only used for the specific elements in a site which won't hinder the site's SEO and usability altogether.

For me it's still depend on the niche. If you want to create a website that is about photos, magazines, or latest games flash is advisable but don't overdo it because so much flash can slow your website and that will affect your number of visitors.

You can ask your website designer to design the web page with smaller image files and individual images that can load faster rather than one big flash presentation. Apart from fast loading, it should be having proper navigation buttons. This would makes it easy for the user to find things on your site without guessing where to go.

Bear in mind that there's a huge increase in the number of users these days browsing from mobile devices, and many of them do NOT support flash (think iphone). So sites that are flash only for navigation are completely unusable on these devices.

Yes indeed there has been an increasing volume of sites using flash.This is probably due to the fact that,most search engines are now capable of indexing the flash content as well,which was not the case previously. Still,its a bad idea to develop a website with flash only.It usually tends to slow down your website/s and slow loading websites are not entertained by visitors and the search engine bots as well.

Full flash took off a few years ago... Now it's diminished greatly. Not enough seo characteristics in it to be effective.