After all these years I still have people contact me claiming that framed sites are no good.

The idea that search engines can't read frame pages is an old-wives tale -- it is misinformation that has been widespread. Here is the real deal

Search engines have absolutely no trouble reading a page that is presented in a frame as long as there is a route to it that allows for spidering the page. That is why there is the [noframes] tag which is placed on the frame controller page - which is the main entry page to a website that search engines see. The [no frames] section is where links are placed to allow search engines to spider the rest of a website. There is no problem with frames - only with webmasters who do not know how to use them.

In fact, frames work so well that they have often been referred to as "poor man's cloaking" because link farms could be hidden in the [no frames] section. To combat this a couple of years ago Google started to give lesser weight or ignore comletely links in the [no frames] section that leave the website to go to other sites. The links that lead into the site itself and allow Google to fully spider the site still work as before.

These forums run in a frame because the software is actually a cgi program - without frames search engines could not spider the forums. With frames this site is #1 in Google for "real estate forums" and other keywords and has at the time of this post almost 12,000 pages listed.

Framing works - there is no problem with framing sites.

[This message has been edited by doug (edited 09-30-2004).]

If you put the right tags in I don't see a problem with frames, and I have used them some but as a rule I try to avoid using them I guess I am chicken

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Web Marketing and Design Since 1995
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North Scottsdale Custom Homes

Fountain Hills Arizona Real Estate

Most webmaster avoid frame because of this false belief that search engine can't crawl frame and it is hard to SEO framed sites (Quiet True). As long as you can make your frameset optimize you will not have any problems.

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Philippine Real Estate Finder | Guide for Beginners

Some of the top real estate sites have frames. Check out google for San Diego Homes or Las Vegas Real Estate. Both are framed sites.

Visit the most comprehensive Las Vegas Real Estate and Henderson Real Estate website online. Or look at pictures of my Parrot

The reason why some top real estate sites use frames actually is because search engines have a hard time spidering those particular sites - which does not help shore up my original post

As reported back in March in an analysis of Google's "Florida" changes at http://www.agentsonline.net/forum/Forum9/HTML/000055.html,
some real estate sites were rocketed to the top - and remain there still - because they had more links coming in then leaving - they were not in fact reciprocating links.



Now of course many sites are buying hundreds or thousands of one-way paid links so they can reciprocate with other agents but still have more links coming in than going out. There has been some evidence that search engines penalize this when discovered or reported but there is no penalty for failing to properly reciprocate link exchanges and framed sites make it easier to do that - which is why framed sites get a bad rap.

Once again, it is not the framing itself that is the problem but how the webmaster uses the framing.

I have a question. Does using IP in a frame instead of domain name hurts SEO?

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Philippine Real Estate Finder | Guide for Beginners

Good question! My own feeling is that it may be seen as a separate site - at least for link pop - much the way 'mydomain.com' and 'www.mydomain.com' can be. I wouldn't do it personally. Why would one want to do this in the first place?

"These forums run in a frame because the software is actually a cgi program."

But it would be nice to not be framed so we could bookmark a thread.

Wouldn't framed pages indexed at a search engine provide direct links to the indexed frame only? The other frames that make the site, such as the header and navigation will be missing when the indexed page is visited.

Beyond the SE issue - frames make it difficult to direct link to particular pages in the site. You should be able to send a client a link to a new listing page. Framing makes this a problem.

Frames are good for some things but they do create some problems. Since effective Web sites can be easily designed without frames, there is no reason to use them.

However, frames are useful for backend administrative interfaces. That is another topic though....

iREagent, you can bookmark threads by right-clicking and using the resulting menu. In Firefox you would choose "this frame" first and then "Bookmark". With Explorer you just need to click "Add to Favorites" on the menu - it bookmarks the framed page.

techmonkey, all of the framed pages are indexed - not just the main body frame. All of the links to interior pages are also listed if placed in the noframes section as well.

I usually make sure all pages on framed sites have a good navigation system to help with spidering and when they get orphaned in a search engine you can often not even tell it belongs in a frame.

Having said that, I usually avoid using frames myself but not because of search engine issues - it is hard to make a site appealing using frames.

Repeat after me "Frames are Bad".

Frames have all kinds of problems, even with things like the [noframes] tag.

1. Users can become 'stuck' on your framed page. If your site uses frames, and a particular frame ends up in a google search result, a visitor might land on that page and be unable to access any other parts of your page simply because your navigator or header are placed in other frames which the user cannot see.

2. Why bother with the extra code needed for the use of [noframes]? Sure you can use some [noframes] tags to give alternative content to a search engine, or a browser which doesn't support frames, however there almost NO reason to use frames on any modern website.

3. Frames cause trouble with bookmarking and the use of the "back" button. Yes, it is possible to aid users in bookmarking the correct page when viewing framed content, however it's more unecessary code that only complicates your markup. In some situations the functionality of the users "back" button will be changed or lost making it very difficult to navigate your website.

4. Search engines do a poor job of indexing framed sites. Sure you can use the [noframes] tag to provide alternate content, however it's not the same as having all of the content on the same page and again relies on unecessary markup and code.

Here are a number of links that further confirm the notion that in general frames are bad and should be avoided.

Why Frames are Not Supported at MIT

Google Information for Webmasters

Why Frames Suck Most of the Time

Danny Goodman has done some fine work regarding website development and frames. Including a couple of tips for making a framed site accessible to a Search Spider...

Frames aren't great, but they aren't as widely hated by the industry (note, I say tech industry as in developers, people who understand the DOM, deeper web technologies. Not webmasters and SEOs). Even the usability experts aren't shying away from them.

And there are alot of reasons why modern sites would be coded using frames. Not all of them obvious to everybody except the database engineers, scripters, object coders and front end html'ers. There is a major difference in focus and knowledge between the differnet people responsible for designing, developing and hosting a site.

If you're looking for an interesting tip on working in the framed world while not getting totally shunned by the SE world, drop me a PM.

I cannot think of one instance where it would really make sense to use frames? Maybe an intranet or a control panel or something, but not for a production website that you're expecting users to interact with. The only things that i know of which use frames are the API docs for Java and .NET, which makes sense since you might want to look at how to use a certain function or class while still browsing others.

I'd REALLY like to know some cases where you think frames would actually be a good idea? There is pretty much NO reason to use them nowadays.

Just look around, the only people that still use frames are the same people who put the little web counter at the bottom of the page or use the rotating gif of a piece of mail to indicate that you can send them an email.

QUOTED FROM GOOGLE
http://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html
My Web Pages Are Not Currently Listed

Google is a mechanized search engine, which employs robots known as 'spiders' to crawl the web on a monthly basis and find sites for inclusion in the Google index. Please review the basics of submitting your site to learn more.

1. Reasons your site may not be included.

# Your page uses frames. Google supports frames to the extent that it can. Frames tend to cause problems with search engines, bookmarks, emailing links and so on, because frames don't fit the conceptual model of the web (every page corresponds to a single URL). If a user's query matches the site as a whole, Google returns the frame set. If a user's query matches an individual page on the site, Google returns that page. That individual page is not displayed in a frame -- because there may be no frame set corresponding to that page.

If you are concerned with the description of your site as seen by search engines, please read "Search Engines and Frames". It describes the use of the 'NoFrames' tag, which is used to provide alternative content. If, instead of providing alternative content, you use wording such as "This site requires the use of frames" or "Upgrade your browser", then you are excluding both search engines and people who use browsers with frames turned off. (For example, audio web browsers, such as those used in automobiles and by the visually impaired, typically do not deal with frames, which are a visual mechanism.) You can read about NoFrames in the HTML standard here: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/present/frames.html#h-16.4

IMHO, FRAMES ARE BAD, has nothing to do with not knowing how to use them, the robots dont like the, thus causing me to not like them either.

later,

It has EVERYTHING with knowing or not knowing how to use them. The only people who keep claiming that frames are bad are those who dont know how to use them to their full advantage. Frames are one of the easiest ways to make a spider friendly sight. As Doug said, "... a poor man's cloaking".


Insults from someone who doesnt know how to optimize a framed site? You are entitled to your opinion, but avoid the rhetoric if you dont know what the heck you are talking about.

No "little web counter" for me - they dont count high enough. I use a js program and a server side stat program. This way I see can who, from where and how many times my 100s of framed pages that rank on page one in Google for 100+ different terms are accessed every day.

The bottom line is many things work. If you know what you are talking about, then great. But if you dont, dont repeat myths just because you read them somewhere.

From Google:
This simply means that you wont get the frameset. It does not mean that spiders dont crawl them.