Frames and Search
Engines
By Sumantra Roy
When it comes to framed sites and the effect that the use of
frames by a site has on its search engine ranking, there are
two schools of thought. Some people say that framed sites, if
done properly, have no problems in getting good rankings in
the search engines. Others claim that if search engine optimization
is important to you, never use frames.
In my opinion, the truth lies somewhere in between. Yes, the
use of frames does throw up a few issues when it comes to getting
good rankings in the search engines which don't understand frames.
Hence, when you are designing a new site, I would recommend
that you avoid using frames, unless you have a specific reason
for doing so. However, if you already have a site which uses
frames, all is not lost. You can still get good rankings in
the search engines even though you have used frames. Furthermore,
using frames also has its own advantages when it comes to search
engine placement, as we shall later on. This article assumes
that you have a working knowledge of frames. For more information
on frames, go to http://www.webreference.com/dev/frames/
In case your site uses frames, the key to getting good rankings
lies in using the NOFRAMES tag. The NOFRAMES tag is intended
to help framed web sites display some content for those people
who are using browsers which don't understand frames. The search
engines which don't understand frames also look at the NOFRAMES
tag. Hence, if you are using frames, you need to add content
to the NOFRAMES tag.
What you should do is to add a complete web page within the
NOFRAMES tag. Ensure that this page repeats the important keywords
for your site a number of times. Also, in order to ensure that
the content within the NOFRAMES tag is as prominent as possible
to the search engines, you should put the NOFRAMES tag right
after the FRAMESET tag. However, don't put the NOFRAMES before
the FRAMESET tag. If you do that, Internet Explorer will display
your site correctly but Netscape will display the content present
in the NOFRAMES tag, rather than the content present within
the frames. Furthermore, you should also place a link to the
page containing your navigation links in the NOFRAMES tag. This
ensures that the search engines are able to spider the internal
pages in your site.
Here's what the source code of your page might look like:
One problem that occurs when you use frames
is that the search engines may often display one of the internal
pages in your site in response to a query. If this internal
page does not contain a link to the home page of your site,
the user will be unable to navigate through your entire site.
The solution, of course, is to add a link to the home page from
that internal page. When the visitor clicks on that link, she
is brought within the context of the frames.
However, simply adding a link to the home page
presents yet another problem. If the visitor had already been
viewing that page within the context of the frames and then
clicks on the link to the home page, a new set of frames will
be created in addition to the frames already being used. In
order to solve this problem, you have to use the TARGET = "_top"
command in the link, i.e. the HTML code for the link would be
something like
Go
to our home page
Wrapping things up:
As I mentioned earlier, there is also an advantage
to using frames. Since most Internet users are now using frames
enabled browsers, it means that not many people are going to
know what's present in your NOFRAMES tag. This allows you the
repeat your keywords a few more times in the NOFRAMES than what
you could have done if you were writing a page which humans
would also see (of course, don't repeat the keywords too many
times - that can cause your web site to be penalized for spamming).
You can also avoid using tables, graphics etc. which you would
otherwise need to use if humans would also view that page. However,
it is debatable whether this small advantage is sufficient to
justify using frames.
Article by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of
the most respected search engine positioning specialists on
the Internet. To have Sumantra's company place your site at
the top of the search engines, go to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com
For more advice on how you can take your web site to the top
of the search engines, subscribe to his FREE newsletter by going
to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/newsletter.htm
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