SEO and frames in a web 2.0 world.

kgun · #1 (**permalink**) 08-26-2007, 10:47 AM

Background:
This site was the second I set up on the inernet. As you can see it was based on frames. I liked the frame technology fairly good, but then I started reading books and forums posts and very soon I discovered that using frame based sites was not good for SEO purposes. Frames or more preciesly a framset or set of framesets, would confuse the SE Bots. A framset is in a sense a collection of pages within a page as you see here:

Domain URL or the index page.

Code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Kjell Bleivik, CV and some poems etc. in Norwegian only</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>
<frameset rows="*" cols="140,*" frameborder="NO" border="0" framespacing="0">
  <frame src="leftmenu.html" name="leftFrame" scrolling="NO" noresize>
  <frame src="main.html" name="mainFrame">
</frameset>
<noframes><body>
</body></noframes>
</html>

The main page or what you may think of as the body of an ordinary page.
The left menu page / frame

Questions:
Now in web 2.0 with AJAX and other technologies based on iFrames, zero frames and and the XMLHttpRequestobject:

Is the same argument against using frame based sites still valid?
How advanced are the SE Bots at indexing framed sites?

bj · #2 (**permalink**) 08-29-2007, 05:53 PM

Frames are still an awful idea, even if Search Engine spiders can index them more effectively than in the past (which I don't think they do, actually) Why are they so bad?

What if I want to print a page and I'm not a computer whiz?

What if I'm handicapped and using assistive technology?

What if I want to use the back button in my browser?

What if I want to bookmark a bit of content?

None of these functionalities work well in frames without having to jump through right click hoops, and not everyone knows to use that trick. And the cardinal rule of web design is DON'T PISS OFF YOUR VISITORS. Frames break that rule over and over again (if your visitors stick around that long.) They're a usability nightmare.

craigmn3 · #3 (**permalink**) 08-29-2007, 06:13 PM

You really have to resist the desire to fall into frames. Whatever benefit you seek, can't be found there.

As for Web 2.0 it's right there on my shelf with Sony Beta Max....Blue Ray and all the other over hyped thingummies that the is important to the people in the industry, but the general unwashed public (and the washed) don't really care about and eventually just go away.

deepsand · #4 (**permalink**) 08-29-2007, 07:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bj

Frames are still an awful idea, even if Search Engine spiders can index them more effectively than in the past (which I don't think they do, actually) Why are they so bad?

What if I want to print a page and I'm not a computer whiz?

What if I'm handicapped and using assistive technology?

What if I want to use the back button in my browser?

What if I want to bookmark a bit of content?

None of these functionalities work well in frames without having to jump through right click hoops, and not everyone knows to use that trick. And the cardinal rule of web design is DON'T PISS OFF YOUR VISITORS. Frames break that rule over and over again (if your visitors stick around that long.) They're a usability nightmare.

I have yet to see a framed page that could not be easily & properly printed using the usual procedures.

And, the only times that I've seen any page, framed or otherwise, for which the "Backspace" key was inoperative was owing to said scancode being deliberately trapped so as to prevent the user from executing that function, typically where such would cause the re-execution of a "Post" with undesirable consequences, such a duplicating a just completed transaction.

As for bookmarking a framed page, I just now tried it on a site using .ASP within frames with success.

Petech · #5 (**permalink**) 08-29-2007, 10:48 PM

The trick with frames is to use the NOFRAMES element. A meaningful NOFRAMES element should always be used in a frameset document and should at the very least include links to the main frame or frames. Then be sure to include a navigation menu or sitemap on every page. That way the search bots can slip past the Frame and into the Frameset pages; once inside they can search your entire site using the navigation menu or sitemap. Here is a typical example of the NOFRAMES element.

<NOFRAMES>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF">
<FONT COLOR="#5A7E5A" SIZE="4">If you are reading this page, your browser may not support frames. This is the website of <A HREF="Home.html">The Widget Company</A>.<BR>
We specialize in widgets such as <A HREF="Equipment/widgetA.html">Widget A</A>
To find out more about how we can help you, please check out our <A Href="Current.html">current inventory</A>.
</BODY>
</NOFRAMES>

Be sure to include your company or website name on every page so that visitors who jump into an internal page through a search engine will know who they are visiting. I have been using Frames to control the layout of my company website for years and we are always listed in the top 10 for our targeted keywords on the major search sites. An added benefit of using frames is that it makes it more difficult for your competitors to steal your source code and content.

luigip · #6 (**permalink**) 08-30-2007, 08:04 AM

Yeah, back to the Stone Age.

JohneeMac · #7 (**permalink**) 08-31-2007, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by luigip

Yeah, back to the Stone Age.

Yeah totally agree.

There really is no excuse for using frames these days. Its 1997 web design.

Table are bad. Frames as awful!

**mjtaylor** · #8 (**permalink**) 08-31-2007, 10:07 PM

Google can index frames now, but some other engines can't ... but even Google doesn't seem to think they are a good idea and tells us why:
Webmaster Help Center - Does Google index sites with frames?

MJ

kgun · #9 (**permalink**) 09-02-2007, 12:49 PM

Very good information from all of you. Thank you very much.

youds · #10 (**permalink**) 12-10-2007, 06:02 AM

I came from this topic: Iframes and SEO

In response to the "stone age" poster I would say that the iframe has been reinvigorated by the latest craze Web 2.0

iframes are useful when you're creating Ajax web sites when you want the back button to work. Example: GMail

If you don't want the back button to work, you use xmlhttprequest when requesting new data.

And yes, <noframes> is the SEO solution for frames, without that tag, frames would ruin your SEO (see above link)

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