Why not use frames?

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Richard D
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Post by Richard D »

We use frames and were very happy with them until we had a major problem for several months last year when we suddenly lost all our ranking with google (for searches not PR).
I did some research and the finger seemed to point at the frames (as you mentioned, few people in the industry seem to like them except relative novices like us) ! Anyway, rather than re-write the whole site, I added a NOFRAMES tag and popped the keyword laden text after it and that seemed to fix the problem. The problem ONLY occurred with google.

One other minor problem I found with frames is that he frameset doesn't get included on searches that result in pages other than the index. We still have frames on our main site but I shan't include them in my next site !
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Giddy Goat
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Post by Giddy Goat »

Richard D wrote:One other minor problem I found with frames is that he frameset doesn't get included on searches that result in pages other than the index.
Could you please explain to a simple goat what this means Richard?
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be
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tree-peony
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Post by tree-peony »

GG if you use frames, the main page of the site, index.html, is just a frameset and doesn't have any real content. The content is provided within that frameset by other html pages which google doesn't "see" as easily
http://www.gozoluxury.co.uk
actually quite nice apartment in Gozo!
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Giddy Goat
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Post by Giddy Goat »

Thanks TP, that's clearer now. :)
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e-richard
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Post by e-richard »

tree-peony wrote:... other html pages which google doesn't "see" as easily
This is not a personal comment on TP, but I really believe this is an old myth. Can someone point us to any authoratative writings on this subject ?

Try Google searching on:
fishing in Navarrenx
or
farm at La Vendange

Both these phrases were deliberately chosen to match the content I was looking for but they are not that unusual and in both cases the frame page appears in premium position.

By the way, these phrases do not appear in the noframes section of the frameset either.
** Richard
PIMS: Holiday Rental Management system
They say we learn from our mistakes. That makes me a genius !
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Richard D
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Post by Richard D »

Hi again,

I tend to use googles' own advice as a first point of call for issues like these - check out this link:

http://www.google.com/support/webmaster ... topic=8522

Theres probably a simple way to ensure that the frames get loaded if someone enters your site from a search engine link into a page other than index, but I haven't taken the time to figure it out yet - I made sure that theres a clear link back to index.html from all my other indexed pages so it's a very minor annoyance really.
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thisfrenchlife
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Post by thisfrenchlife »

Richard D wrote: I made sure that there's a clear link back to index.html from all my other indexed pages so it's a very minor annoyance really.
I think that is the safer option if you are going to use frames.

If a website user lands on this page:

http://www.holidaysouthwestfrance.com/leisure.html

How do they get back to the front page and see you offer a gite in the area?

A couple of tweaks you could make are to turn the header graphic into a live link, and have a similar link at the foot of all your pages, back to your home page (this could be a simple text link, which would also help search engines).

The one at the footer is particularly important as people get to the end of your content and then are not too sure where to go next, pointing them to the home page lets them see they could actually stay near the area they've just been reading about.

All the best
Craig
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