To frame or not to frame...Calling all frame junkies

[Rich@vtws]

Hello all,

I want to hear from everyone that has a framed sited and see what you think the plus & minuses are. How's your Search engine rankings? How many backlinks do you have and that kind of stuff. I know there's many here that have them so let's hear from you.

Not everyone can afford a custom site but there are many things that may be possible to get some of your sites doing better than they are now. I'm not looking to start a discussion on the negatives of framed sites but rather trying to get a discussion going to help those that have one do as well as they can for now.

I've been away for a couple days but I'm back and want to get things rolling again

[home-point.net]

I used to have a frame site long-long ago. I think, it's not the way to go. Some reasons:

• Hard to navigate when it's out of context
• Does not look as good
• Hard to bookmark by visitors
• Hard to print properly

I also hear that spider does not do as well with framed site, but I do not have hard evidence to proof or disproof this statement.

[Rich@vtws]

Thanks for the reply This list goes on but the fact remains there are many in use I want to get some feedback from framed site owners to see if any have sites they fell are working and why so we can get a good discusion going without poo pooing on their sites

[FredLight]

I have found that at the very least, if you can avoid a framed home page, that will help get your main page indexed well with the search engines.

I have several customers who have Z57 sites that won't index because of flash intros and/ or frames, so I just converted the front page over to a single page and everything changed.

[Mauirealestatepete]

I do not use a site with frames and I have heard a lot of criticism of frames on other SEO forums. That being said, framed sites have faired pretty well for my main keywords in both Google and Yahoo.

[sdhomes]

Google has no problem crawling and indexing properly designed framed sites.

[sdhomes]

Here is a good article that offers a solution for the most common problem with frames; a framed page without the frame.

http://www.webmarketingplus.co.uk/se...mes_sites.html

[Rich@vtws]

Hi sdhomes,

There are workarounds for everything but the fact remains that frames are NOT the most search engine friendly way to structure your site.

Using your own example uses much java script, again...not the most tastey spider food and then there's the issue of your frames pages appearing without the navigation...aka black home pages...just add your typical :"your are viewing this page without navigation Click here message and problem sovled right. Not exactly.

The only legitimate use I have for frames is pulling outside pages inside the site. Other than that there's really no positive to them that I can see...then again...I could be wrong

[sdhomes]

Hi sdhomes,

There are workarounds for everything but the fact remains that frames are NOT the most search engine friendly way to structure your site.

Using your own example uses much java script, again...not the most tastey spider food and then there's the issue of your frames pages appearing without the navigation...aka black home pages...just add your typical :"your are viewing this page without navigation Click here message and problem sovled right. Not exactly.

The only legitimate use I have for frames is pulling outside pages inside the site. Other than that there's really no positive to them that I can see...then again...I could be wrong

Rich, this "the fact remains..." statement is an oft repeated myth, not fact. Search engines have no problems with framed sites that are done correctly. In certain situations, frames have some distinct advantages.

You missed the point with the JS. The JS in this example has nothing to do with bots. Whether or not Google crawls a link to a frameset is immaterial.
It's sole purpose is to solve the problem of a framed page without the navigation by recalling a frameset for the page. The JS used here does no harm, just solves a problem which exists when the search engine indexes the framed page. If search engines had such a problem with frames, then the orphaned page problem wouldnt be an issue.

[Rich@vtws]

I hereby crown thee frame junkie overlord

Like I said when I started the thread...I'm not looking to bash frames or peoples sites in any way whatsoever. I'm just trying to get an understanding of why people still use this method when it has ,what I perceive to be disadvantages. Why would you want to use js to call another page and add another function when the page can contain the navigation on board.

Is it your understanding that when a black hole is summoned causing the js to call the nav page that the spiders will follow thru to the nav page out to another black hole which summons, once again the nav page and so on... with the same effectiveness as a static page. There are other issues but we'll stick with this one for now. Who know's maybe I'll start building all my sites with frames...