To do Frames or not to do?

Hi
This may be a long shot. Anyways I am taking my chances. I am planning to build a small business website (just plain HTML stuff as of now) and I want to build it in such a way that it follows the general guideline of SEO.

Now my question: Is it a good practice to use Frames in the website from SEO point of view? I had read somewhere that using frames is not a good idea.

Can anyone give some thoughts on it?

Thanks

A bunch of pages linked together only by html instead of each one having it's own structure and navigational elements is a very Bad Thing™ SEO-wise.

Imagine you have one of your frame pages indexed. If one visitor lands on it he won't have a clue that this is only one frame of all the others you have put together to build the entire structure. He won't have easy access to the rest of the information, and unless he has enough interest to type your home url to see if that way can find some other stuff, most likely the visitor will just leave.

Even if they find your page going into the home page... how will they refer specific content? The only url they will have easy access will be the one of your home page. Same thing with bookmarking. You yourself will have a tough time making backlinks to your content.

I think it is clear that IMO frames are bad, bad, bad.

I agree with this ^^. Not only is it a disaster for SEO, but it's highly irritating to guests.

Hello everybody my name is Pro :)

I'm just researching a little on frames but I'm still not sure how to use them. As I understand it frames were an old HTML thing from the past that was not recommended for design due to poor browser computability. I'm wanting to use an online Trivia site's page in a frame on my forum so that my members can log in and play without having to leave my site. Is is possible for me to code a frame to display the Trivia site in a new window?

Thanks for your help :)

Either wrapping it in iframe or div tags will probably do it.

I'm not alway sure of the best way to do these things, not having formal HTML training (like many of us I'm sure). And I'm not always sure when to use iframe and when to use div tags. So what I tend to do is build the page and then run it through the W3C Validator (http://validator.w3.org/). Whilst most people have an allergic reaction to all the errors it points out, I just love the advice this tool gives. It's how I'm learning...

Either wrapping it in iframe or div tags will probably do it.

I'm not alway sure of the best way to do these things, not having formal HTML training (like many of us I'm sure). And I'm not always sure when to use iframe and when to use div tags. So what I tend to do is build the page and then run it through the W3C Validator (http://validator.w3.org/). Whilst most people have an allergic reaction to all the errors it points out, I just love the advice this tool gives. It's how I'm learning...
Hello and thanks for the reply :)

I'm not what I'd call formally trained either to be honest, I'm looking for a bit of advice/help on using this one site in a frame. I was reading on of my teach yourself HTML and XHTML books yesterday and it mentioned a frames page as opposed to an inline frame. From what I gather I just code an iframe and code the link as a popup in a new window. Seems pretty simple actually but I thought I'd better ask for advice anyway. I almost can't believe frames are still used on websites but I suppose that as long as my members browsers support frames and the frame isn't annoyingly large needing sideways scrolling it should be ok.

I just bought vBulletin via E-Cheque so it will take a few days before I can set it up, my main content for my forum will be vB Blogs, Flashchat, IBP Pro Arcade, and Trivia. I've had a few members say that I should try to keep people on the forum (currently running on InvisionFree) rather than posting external links so I wanted to use the Trivia site in a frame. If I read my book correctly I can always provide a link which shows if a browser doesn't support frames so it should be ok fingers crossed.

I have the exact same problem, I can tell you from 3 years of a site having frames that it has caused a hugely detrimental effect. Sites with zero activity are higher placed in google for my own site name.

I am so stuck and not sure how to fix this.

There would be an uproar if I took away my frames, but I just do not know how to go about fixing this....

If you come up with any solutions for yours, Id certainly be interested in reading..

SS:)

I have the exact same problem, I can tell you from 3 years of a site having frames that it has caused a hugely detrimental effect. Sites with zero activity are higher placed in google for my own site name.

I am so stuck and not sure how to fix this.

There would be an uproar if I took away my frames, but I just do not know how to go about fixing this....

If you come up with any solutions for yours, Id certainly be interested in reading..

SS:)
Hello :)

I've come up with a few ideas concerning frames but I'd need to know a little more about your specific problem to try and help solve it. It depends why you want to remove frames (if this is the problem for SEO etc) and how you're displaying them currently. Not knowing how you've got your frames set up I can't really comment further but as I don't know your situation I feel able to outline some stuff that you no doubt already know but that I've learnt lately.

Inline frames can easily be embedded into any forum post as far as I know with pretty much a single line of code. Firefox and IE display them correctly from what I've tested so far today and if they're embedded as a sub-portion of your page(s) then I don't see how this could cause a detrimental effect on SEO as it would be a line of code among a normal vBulletin page acting however it normally does according to your SEO setup.

I don't know for sure but I think people are generally suggesting frames (as opposed to I-frames) are negative on SEO in the context of a 'new window' type page instead of it being displayed in the same manner as a YouTube embed for example.

In this case if we had a complete page that was a frame in its entirety it would be a problem as it's a self-contained unit. It's difficult and potentially troublesome to link it effectively as a part of your main site/forum. In effect we'd have your main page (HTML, vB etc) and then a frame page that exists as a separate entity. It opens in a new browser window and so it's independent of your main site.

Anyway, sorry I'm waffling here, the solution in my opinion would be to use forums as normal and convert your frames, assuming that you're using the 'new window' method currently, into <iframe> instead as then you can still display the frame exactly the same but as it's wrapped (as such) by the forum code that makes the page you can code SEO around the code that embeds your frame and you lose nothing as far as I can see. You can nest frames as well.

The only difference would be that your users viewed the frames on forum pages instead of in a new window. Sorry if you already know all of this but as I've said without knowing what you know I just thought I'd do a general outline.

Kind regards.

Pro :)

Pro, that would be great if you could have a look at my site and the situation..

www.mlptp.net is the site URL....

Many thanks :)

Pro, that would be great if you could have a look at my site and the situation..

www.mlptp.net is the site URL....

Many thanks :)
Tis done;)

Tis done;)
Hi Guys

Okay, I found this bb tag for iframes:

http://www.vbhackers.com/f78/iframe-bbcode-7907/index2.html

My biggest concern at this point is whether its a high security risk. If it is I will forget about this quick smart! Hence, the reason I come here - to ask the pro's :yes:

You are allowing code in from another site, which opens the door for injection of malicious code.

You are allowing code in from another site, which opens the door for injection of malicious code.
Agreed :yes: I only use the iframe tag to display sites that I trust 100% such as my friend's website, this is someone I've grown up with in real life so I doubt he'd have the skills to use malicious code though I'm not doubting that somebody could potentially hack his site.

What are the security concerns for the iframe tag?

Are frames not as self contained (as in sandboxed) as I thought?

I suppose that any code is only as trusted as its author at the end of the day :p

Hi Guys

Okay, I found this bb tag for iframes:

http://www.vbhackers.com/f78/iframe-bbcode-7907/index2.html

My biggest concern at this point is whether its a high security risk. If it is I will forget about this quick smart! Hence, the reason I come here - to ask the pro's :yes:
Thanks for the link :) I'm looking for a way to learn to sandbox the frames somehow myself through custom code. I'm sure it can be done it's just that I'm not good enough or knowledgeable enough to write it yet ;)

EDIT - I'm thinking of running the frame through something similar to a proxy site interface perhaps, completely disallowing dynamic code or converting it to a different display format somehow. There must be a way to parse the HTML using PHP to dynamically extract only certain pictures or text while disallowing all other forms of content. Basically I suppose it depends on what site you're planning to frame and whether or not it would be worth framing (still display as you want it to) without certain code elements.

You are allowing code in from another site, which opens the door for injection of malicious code.
That's basically the answer I didn't want to hear, but did want to know. Thanks Dave :)

That's basically the answer I didn't want to hear, but did want to know. Thanks Dave :)
It's not automatically a bad thing. IMO it's a bit like like using gas to cook in your home, it's potentially explosive when handled wrong, but with sensible monitoring and implementation it keeps millions of people happy ;)