We all know of the eyes that roll and fierceness with which some people attack the back button as soon as they see a long-loading Flash intro. You can see recent discussions and heated opinions shared on http://www.visible-form.com/blog/000071.html and http://www.jessewarden.com/archives/000611.html, which are responding to http://www.derekfranklin.com/blog/2004_08_01_dailyblogarchive.htm#109172394834660746 regarding some disadvantages of an all-flash site. Personally, I like having both Flash and HTML, but usually keep them separated. It worked well in at least one instance where we needed to get some search engine exposure.Reversing the Order
It's really simple. Rather than a Flash intro to an HTML site, we used an HTML "intro" to a Flash site. The site is for a card sorting application that is built with 100% Flash, including the login. The homepage for the site, however, is almost pure XHTML/CSS. Oh, there is one tiny Flash file- it's the contact email address embedded in a .swf, which has successfully kept spam away since the site was launched. Anyway, the point is that within a few months we had the top Google spot for 3 key terms: "WebSort", "web-based card sorting," and "card sorting tools." No robots tricks, redirects, or URL rewrites. Heck, I don't even have any Meta keywords in there. Just clean markup, some good outbound links, and some friendly bloggers that linked to us.
So for "I, Robot" or any other site wanting to use lots of Flash, might I recommend giving the "HTML-Intro" a try. If you've done something similar, drop a note in the comments. I'm sure there are tons of good examples.