After reading through the posts here the only thing you and the other pro frame posters said is that SEs have can spider frames. I am not sure of that but I will take your word. Two questions:

1. What advantages do frames have? Are they easier to use? Do they provide good accessibility. Do they make the site look more professional? Your only stated advantage was for cloaking.

2. You seem to suggest that this site works because of frames but you also claim they are needed because this is a cgi program. Did you purposely choose forum software dependent on frames? I visit several other forums (all non-frame) and to be honest this forum appears to use the most primitive forum software.

You brought up a good point about webmasters not knowing how to use frames. I can agree a little but I know many top web developers who would argue that it is more productive to learn and use standards like css and xhtml which are future oriented than to use frames. They list dozens of logical, common sense and productivity advantages to using css/xhtml and standards.

My take from what you have said. Frames may not hurt you in the search engines but you gave no advantage that they would help except for a site like this that uses a cgi program which may be dependent on frames. I honestly can not tell from your explanation.

Framing may work, but it is much safer and easier to use web standards with correct semantic markup. This way your web site will be both user and SE friendly, accessible to a greater number of people and usable with a broad range of web devices.

Frames, css and xhtml are not either/or propositions. They are not mutually exclusive. They are not even related from a code standpoint.

Any page can have validated code and use css in whole or in part. That has nothing to do with the use of a frameset. In fact, w3c has a validator for XHTML 1.0 Frameset, which is just html 4.0 Frameset with a few modifications for xml.

I can use css and create a 3 column tablelss page and put it in a frameset. I can use css with tables and create a page in a frameset. This has nothing to do with anything.

Its not cloaking. You dont use a frameset to cloak. You have it backwards. Cloaking is what you do to give an unframed site the same advantage as one with a frameset. If you optimize the frameset in addition to the index page, you now have a distinct advantage with a search engine like Google.

You are absolutely correct here. But that is not what the thread was about. The answer to the question posed is "No, if done correctly". Its the same answer that applies to unframed sites. How many times have you seen unframed sites built by so-called experts that dont rank for anything the client wants because the "expert" puts the following in the title tag:

"Neuman & amp;& nbsp ;Neuman SMART Agent Website"

That is the title tag for Prudential's top agent nationwide 4 of 6 years. What he paid these clowns would make you sick. So its not about framesets, its about good code and doing it right, regardless of which way you go.

FWIW, I have several sites, and more coming soon. Only one is framed; the others are not and for all of the usability reasons you gave. But the framed site will stay in frames. Google loves it, Gbot eats it up, its top rankings have been remarkably stable for 4 years. And I have less links than my peers who are looking up at me in the serps.

I could care less what people use, but the misinformation is irritating.

Are you saying that Google loves your site BECAUSE of the FRAMES? If so please give a logical explanation of why they do love because of the frames.

Use frames to your hearts content, that is your choice. I asked if there are any advantages to using frames and so far no one has given any. The fact that some framed sites do well with SERPs is not an advantage of frames. You appear to be abandoning frames on 3 out of 4 sites. Why? Do other ways of coding have advantages for you that frames can't provide? Do you encourage others to use frames?

Yes you can code with css/xhtml within frames but if the frames are hiding from the SE then the point is mute. If you need to use non-framed sites to have the advantages of css/xhtml then you agree with me. From what I can gather you must take an extra step to let the SE look behind the frame. Sounds like extra work to me.

Back to the original point of my post. What are the advantages of using frames?

You can optimize a frameset.

Yes I did. You can optimize a frameset.

Wrong.

Not abandoning frames. I use different things for different situations.

For certain applications, absolutely.

A frameset doesnt hide anything from a search engine.

This statement clearly demonstrates that you have no idea what you are talking about.

You can optimize a frameset. How many times do you have to hear this?

You clearly do not have an understanding of how frames work. A single line of code is all it takes.

So? I have no problem with that statement. If that is your point cool, I don't buy it but you made it yet you fail to answer my question. There are hundreds of ways to optimize a site. But where is the advantage of using frames? If I can optimize my site without the disadvantages of frames why would I choose frames?

You have continuously avoided the simple quesion of "What advantage do frames have?" When you can and show by reference how frames have advantages that outweigh their disadvantages you will have answered my question. Until then you are an anonymous poster with no credibility.

Have a great day!

The question was whether or not search engines have problems with frames. They do not.

Optimizing all parts of a frameset is a huge advantage over optimizing just a single main page.

My credibilty is without question. I have multiple #1 rankings for framed pages, with several hundred pages from this framed site that dominates the serps for my market, as do others here who know how to use frames.

Btw, whoever handles Bruce's link campaign wanted a link from my PR4 Florida page(from my framed site) that actually ranks well in Google for its Florida related term. Since his link pages are only PR1, I didnt respond.

I can provide you with hundreds of examples of page 1 google results for framed pages. They rank well and generate business from these pages, not just their index pages.

So lets call a truce, drop the rhetotic, lose the ego, and help those who have as much experience.

Send me a private message and maybe this discussion turns into a beneficial networking opportunity.

from my previous post

I am fine with leaving it like that.

BTW: take a look at the site now. Last I checked google spiders daily, lists over 700 interal pages (there are about 3000 pages) and is increasing at about 100-150 pages per week. Half are catched and even many of the individual listings show PR2 and PR3. For a site that has been in existence for less than 60 days and for an amature at SEO, I don't believe the site is doing badly. I made some initial mistakes but I learn quickly and recoup just as quickly.

I am always willing to discuss networking. My focus right now is to take advantage of Googles shift of emphasis from the link itself to the linking process. For anyone who is interested I have started a thread for creating a 'good neighbor network' at:

Good Neighbor

Frames are not an easy way to make a spider friendly site. Simple HTML is the best way to make a spide friendly site. Frames don't have a full advantage, they're bad on so many levels they're not even worth worrying about.

Oh please, how would you know whether or not I know how to optimize a framed site. I do know what I'm talking about, which is why I'm taking the time to reply to each of your posts.

Whoa! Javascript! Server-Side! You're really pushing the envelope! Got a URL? Let's take a look.

These aren't myths! Frames are bad for a number of reasons, it sounds like you fell in love with them back in 1997 and haven't looked back.

Do you realize all of the other problems this creates? People end up at some random page on your site without the other frames to help guide them along. Not to mention that when the spiders crawl the frames they get an incomplete view of what the actual page content is.

Seriously, post a URL of your magical frames site and we can take a look at how good or bad it really is.

According to google you're better off not using them. Care to dispute that? That's from google.

That's like saying "Optimizing hidden content is a huge advantage over optimizing viewable content". Sure you can have "more" optimization but that doesn't mean the quality is any better.

Quit throwing the idea around that you're some frame guru. Frames are very simple, everyone knows how to use them, they just chose not to because of the numerous problems they carry. Please post this URL of yours.

HA! Wow, you are SOOOO cool. PR4!?!? How do you do it???

Google has billions of pages in it's index. Anyone can provide hundreds of page 1 examples of anything.

You're not speaking to me, so I won't answer as if you were, however you seem to be the one with the ego spewing the rhetoric.

Will you just admit that frames currently, and always have, had many usability and accesbility problems that make them worse than non-framed sites?

I have no doubt that it's possible to "optimize" a framed page, however if you're going to post under the guise of helping people, you could at least suggest current methods of presenting information on a website.

The fact that so many framed sites rank in Google is IMO because of the real estate filter adding so much weight on the age of a site that other factors are being ignored due to a lack of real competition. You can get away with a lot as long as you have been around for a while, especially if you have some solid backlinks as well as good, quality content.

Looking at my clients who are not real estate related I have to say that non framed sites rank better overall and by far.
I do not know a good way to work with frames since our company stays away from them completey (both of my partners used to work for homes.com and swore to themselves never to use them again once they have left ).

I don't think that anyone should get overly offensive or defensive over this because many people here seem to have their minds made up to where they don't want to change.

I personally vote for the no-frame solution but am interested in hearing any positive comments about them since honestly, I don't really see them.

Mike

No problem! Of course they can have drawbacks. I never said that they didnt. What I said was that search engines have no problems with frames if done right.

"Guise"? Spare me. You dont like frames - that is clear. That is also not the issue here. The topic was search engines and frames. If you use frames, and Im not saying that you should or shouldnt, but if you do, then optimize the frameset. Unfortunately, most people don't. Is that helpful enough for you?

The are lots of framed sites that rank well that dont have the benefit of age.

Mike, from a design standpoint, if you have the choice of anything you want, then there aren't any, other than the ability to optimize the pages that make up the frameset in addition to the main/index page, even if it is something as basic as the title for each of those pages.

Sometimes you may get someone who wont pay to re-do a site, but could benefit from some basic SEO work. Optimizing a frameset that simply says "Your browser doesnt support frames", or is done in such a way so that the cache looks like this:
http://216.239.63.104/search?sourceid=na...tdfoster.com%2F is an easy task that would improve it search engine positioning fairly quickly.

That site is also an excellent example of using frames where they shouldn't be used. This guy hired someone who did it wrong on all counts.