Every day, the team over at Google's headquarters makes advances in Search Engine technology. A few years ago they announced the ability to read Flash websites, and then last year they further announced the ability to read deeper inside Flash websites.
Unfortunately, Flash websites still suffer from lower ranking than normal HTML websites.
In 2010, Google admitted that they have trouble reading websites that rely on JavaScript or AJAX. The Googlebot spider is not able to provide the user input needed to display website information that to us would be very simple to interact with.
The result is that websites with heavy JavaScript and AJAX programming are penalized similar to Flash websites. A simple home page rotating image is nothing to worry about, but you should worry if all the menus on your website rely on JavaScript, or if your product catalog uses AJAX to show your jewelry.
Google announced in April 2011 that they are trying their best, a little bit at a time, to learn to understand these programming technologies. But it will take time.
Meanwhile, relying on these technologies to make your website look fancy will hinder your online presence.
The better course of action is to only utilize known programming techniques on your website, then simply replace the website with something new on a regular basis.
Some savvy jewelers already understand that their websites need to be updated often and upgraded yearly. This yearly renewal allows you to move into more effective web technologies, better integrate with search engine changes and keep in touch with your twenty-something audience.
Even though website technology is already far ahead of what search engines understand, what you need to balance is whether you want "fancy and shiny" or if you want "effective and profitable."
