Frames and Search EnginesWhen 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 see later on. This article assumes that you have a working knowledge of frames. For more information on frames, click Here! 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 non frames enabled browsers. 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:
Wrapping things up:
This article may be re-published as long as the following resource box is included at the end of the article and as long as you link to the email address and the URL mentioned in the resource box: Article by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected and recognized search engine positioning specialists on the Internet. For more articles on search engine placement, subscribe to his 1st Search Ranking Newsletter by sending a blank email to mailto:1stSearchRanking.999.99@optinpro.com or by going to http://www.1stSearchRanking.net |
