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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 see 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:
<p align="left"><html></p>
<p align="left"><head></p>
<p align="left"><title>Put an attractive title which contains
keywords</title></p>
<p align="left"><meta name="description" content="Put an attractive description
which also contains keywords"></p>
<p align="left"><meta name="keywords" content="Your target keywords separated by
commas"></p>
<p align="left"></head></p>
<p align="left"><frameset border="0" cols="150,75%"></p>
<p align="left"><noframes></p>
<p align="left"><body></p>
<p align="left"><h1>Heading containing keywords</h1></p>
<p align="left"><p>Here, you should add a lot of content and should repeat your
keywords a number of times.</p>
<p align="left"><p>More keyword rich text for the search engines.</p>
<p align="left"><a href="left.html">Link to page containing navigation
links</a></p>
<p align="left"></body></p>
<p align="left"></noframes></p>
<p align="left"><frame src="left.html" name="left" scrolling="no" noresize></p>
<p align="left"><frame src="main.html" name="main" scrolling="auto"></p>
<p align="left"></frameset></p>
<p align="left"></html></p>
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
<p align="left"><a href="index.html" TARGET ="_top">Go to our
home page</a></p>
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
1stSearchEngineRanking.
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:
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