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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,
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:
<html>
<head>
<title>Put an
attractive title which contains keywords</title>
<meta
name="description" content="Put an attractive description which also
contains keywords">
<meta name="keywords"
content="Your target keywords separated by commas">
</head>
<frameset border="0"
cols="150,75%">
<noframes>
<body>
<h1>Heading containing
keywords</h1>
<p>Here, you should add
a lot of content and should repeat your keywords a number of times.
<p>More keyword rich
text for the search engines.
<a href="left.html">Link
to page containing navigation links</a>
</body>
</noframes>
<frame src="left.html"
name="left" scrolling="no" noresize>
<frame src="main.html"
name="main" scrolling="auto">
</frameset>
</html>
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
<a href="index.html"
TARGET = "_top">Go to our home page</a>
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 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.com
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