Re: frames and SEO

__/ [wd] on Saturday 29 October 2005 08:57 \__

> On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 07:54:41 +0100, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>> __/ [wd] on Saturday 29 October 2005 07:38 \__
>>
>>> I'm trying to come up with a good list of reasons for talking people out
>>> of using frames. Can anyone think of other reasons to add?
>>>
>>> * Indexing of individual frames instead of the frameset. Unpredictable.
>>>
>>> * Outgoing links (which can affect rankings) found on different
>>> individual
>>> frames. It makes things less predictable.
>>>
>>> * Will the search engines see duplicate content if an entire frameset is
>>> indexed with one URL while the same content is indexed as an individual
>>> frame with a different URL? Seems unpredictable.
>>>
>>> * any others?
>>
>> The subject has been discussed to death (almost literally so). Here is one
>> among thousands of pages which explain why frames must noever be used (at
>> least not in newly-created sites):
>>
>> http://www.html-faq.com/htmlframes/?framesareevil
>>
>> This FAQ comes from alt.html where no month goes by without a huge thread
>> developing which discusses how terrible frames can be. When you see the
>> word frame in the subject line, the inclination is to hit 'ignore' because
>> it can carry on forever.
>>
>> Hope it helps,
>>
>> Roy
>
> Thanks, that is a great page, "Frames are evil." I'm bookmarking it...
>
> I understand the arguments on that page, but am also wondering if there
> are other less-discussed SEO considerations. For example, when you link
> to some good relevant authority sites, your page can benefit. ...


I have always found it dubious. That would discourage linking to 'mom and
pop' sites, as Paul once rightfully called them. Google was one such site
only years ago. It would also open the door to spam -- spam which targets
large authorities and associates them with a bad 'family'.


> ... So placing
> the links in different frames would possibly be detrimental or at least
> less predictable, no? Does a search engine see the content on
> frame2.html as being duplicate content of the main frameset.html? I don't
> know, but am wondering if anyone else has ideas...


I can see how PageRank is distributed among my frameset pages and 'proper'
pages. It seems as though links in frameset pages are simply followed.
PageRank is probably 'leaked' in the process and there is no real purpose
in having the frameset, which is merely a 'glue' that holds 2 (or more)
'real' pages.


> If someone asks, "is getting rid of my frames going to help my
> rankings", what would you answer? They don't care about printing
> problems, bookmarking problems, individually indexed sub-frames, etc.
> Just that their site is "ranked". Getting rid of frames can be somewhat
> expensive if it means redoing the whole site.


It definitely helps ranking. It also helps the /visitors/, that's for
sure. If one frame contains the menu (or navigation bar) while the other
serves content, would you like the visitor to be 'jammed' in a single page
that was reached via search engines? Is a page that is solely a menu ever
be usable? Tell your customers (or whoever you referred to) that a site
with frames is like a shop with the tills in one floor, goods at the floor
above and entrance at the roof. Noone ever comes in; those who come in im-
mediately get lost.


__/ [wd] on Saturday 29 October 2005 09:10 \__

> I just found another page specific to how search engines index frames:
>
> http://www.html-faq.com/htmlframes/?framesearch
>
> (In case some future generation comes across this thread.)


The future generation will care more about spacecraft engine optimisation
(SEO), so I doubt it will ever come handy. *smile*

Roy

--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Useless fact: 111111 X 111111 = 12345654321
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http://iuron.com - next generation of search paradigms
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