Frames and search engines

Optimizing Frames

If your site uses frames, you've got problems - as far as the search engines are concerned anyway!

The problem is that search engines do not index framed sites very well. In fact, the search engines do such a poor job of indexing frames that we recommend redesigning your site without them if you want to get good listings in the search engines.

Now, if your site must use frames there are some tips we recommend you implement to make sure that you get the best listings you can even with frames.

The problem:

A frame is exactly what the name conveys - they are an HTML page that "frames" other HTML pages. Now, the problem arises when you go to submit. In most cases a framed site will only have one page you can submit, the home page. Since your site uses frames the home page actually has nothing that the search engine can use (i.e. page copy) to determine how to list your site. Why? Because your home page is actually a frameset which does not have any real content. Here's an example that should help you see what we mean. Keep in mind this code is what the search engines see:
Example Code of a Site Using Frames
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Example Framed Site</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<FRAMESET cols="150,*">
<FRAME name="contents" target="main">
<FRAME name="main">
</FRAMESET>
</HTML>

We can't explain everything about frames here, but you should easily be able to see in the above example that their is no real content for the search engine to use to determine how to list your site. All that is there is HTML code. The result is a framed site will often not get listed at all, and if it does it will usually be listed very poorly.

The solution:

Not really a "solution" (the solution would be to get rid of the frames!), but the best thing you can do to improve your results is to use the <noframes> tag within your frameset. This tag was originally used for displaying content to people using older web browsers that did not support viewing frames. While just about all web browsers now support frames the <noframes> tag can still be used for content that will help your framed site get listed. In addition, you should also implement the best title tag, and meta tags that you can.

Where it belongs:

The <noframes> tag belongs just before the </frameset> tag for your frameset, as you can see below in red.
Example Code of a Site Using Frames with <NOFRAMES> Tag

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Example Framed Site</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<FRAMESET cols="150,*">
<FRAME name="contents" target="main">
<FRAME name="main">
<NOFRAMES>
Optimized page content goes here for best results.
</NOFRAMES>
</FRAMESET>
</HTML>

Tag tips:

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Place optimized content within the <body> tags that you see above within the <noframes> tag. An easy way to do this is to create a new regular (not framed) home page for your site that describes your site, products & services. Often the content can be taken directly from one of your existing framed pages. Once you have the page created view the HTML of the page and copy everything from within the <body> and </body> tags. Then paste the new content within the <body> and </body> tags found within the <noframes> tags of your frameset. A complete page (including all the HTML) can be placed within the body tags.
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Search engines like simple HTML pages, so since it is very unlikely anyone will ever see this <noframes> content we recommend keeping it very simple and text based for best results.
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Make sure all your <noframes> content is optimized following all our tips. If it is not optimized, it is not going to help you very much.
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Include links in the <noframes> content to all of the other important pages on your site so that the search engine will crawl and index them too.