October 7, 2006 In the creation of a site, many people make use of frames. Frames are a way of making one page that will stay static, but a chunk of which will be used to call information from other pages. The use of frames is often because it is a person’s first site, or their relative made it after graduating a website design program or just picked up a book. This isn’t really a bad thing because most website design/HTML books don’t even go into SEO, and the use of frames is one of the very first subjects covered. It can be a neat little method of keeping a common look throughout the site before learning CSS. More on creating frames can be found here at my favorite online tutorial, Tizag.

The problem with frames is that some browsers don’t play well with them, and the information on the page is often within a frame that can not be seen. Here is a way to get around this problem, posted on Search Engine Watch, while still making use of the frames method. Keep in mind that most methods of using frames and making them SEO friendly, will only help so much. And it’s not really that much.

But maybe you have talking to someone that doesn’t want to give up the frames no matter what you say. One good method is the creation of landing pages. (note: not doorway pages or anything that is a «trick.») You can create a few pages that have the same look and feel as the framed pages, and place the bulk of relevant text on those pages. They will be the first set of pages on the site, (that means replacing the homepage) and will link to the framed pages. Then these pages can be submitted to the search engines. I also think that this is a cheap and ‘shortcutty’ method. It leaves a void when a surfer is moving from framed to unframed pages, and decreases the amount of acceptable information that the search engines can see.

In my opinion it’s probably best to make good use of CSS if you want a common feel on the pages of your site. This will give the desired effects, and work very well with a surfer and search engine alike. Keep in mind my opinion on design should be taken lightly. I’m very analytical, so «pretty» is not a word I implement often. I am very lucky to be involved with people that have an incredible eye for design and a comparable understanding of SEO. The make the site, I make the site work. Now that’s a partnership.

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