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Optimizing HTML Frames

Although less common now, a site built in HTML frames typically has a static header which contains the logo, a static left navigation menu and the body of the page, which scrolls up and down.

To achieve this effect the developer has to create three pages, one for each component, plus a 4th which is invisible to the visitor, called a frameset page.

The frameset page is usually empty apart from the instructions to tell the browser, what it has to load to form your home page.

When you enter via your home page, the browser reads your frameset page, and calls each separate component, including the header, the left menu and the body section.

html frame page

When you click a link in your left navigation menu, the frameset again calls the various components, plus the body page for the relevant link. It works fine in a browser, but when we turn to how search engines index sites, it's a different story.

Search engines list pages individually and when you click a link in a search engine to a no-framed site like ours, the entire page loads as one component.

Therefore all of our pages that have been indexed will bring visitors into a complete page that they can navigate to other parts of our site.

However in a framed site the search engine will list your internal pages, separately from your header and your navigation menu pages.

When a searcher follows the link they arrive at your site on the specific page, but without the top header or left navigation menu in the browser. All they can do is read it and go back to the search engine and visit a competitor.

This is the typical content in a frameset page:

<frameset cols="1*,634,1*" rows="*" frameborder="NO" border="0" framespacing="0" onload="fnCheckFrame()" >
<frame src="leftside.cfm" name="leftside" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" framespacing="0" frameborder="0">
<frame SRC="control.cfm?page=home" name="middle" scrolling="NO" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0" framespacing="0">
<frame src="rightside.cfm" name="rightside" scrolling="NO" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="NO">
</frameset>

Due to the lack of text, the site usually receives a low ranking. You can add text content and sub-page links into the <noframes> tag, but it is no match for a 30 page no-frame site with similar content.

Consequently we recommend avoiding frames unless the effect is achieved with CSS, because it utilises one page instead of 4 separate pages.

Search engine optimisation tutorial - user compatibility and avoiding spam



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