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Frames and search engine visibility

I heard I shouldn't use frames in my web site if I want quality traffic high search engine positions. Is this true?

Alas, another search engine marketing myth. One misconception about search-engine friendly web site design is the use of frames. At numerous web site design, search engine optimization, and online marketing conferences, I constantly hear speakers making blanket statements to "never use frames" when designing search-engine friendly sites.

I really hate it when "experts" make blanket statements without performing quality testing. Okay, end of rant.

First, most of the search engines can follow the links inside of a frameset layout. That issue was addressed years ago.

However, there is still the issue of frames abuse. Many unethical search engine marketers like to use hidden framesets, often called envelope pages, to stuff keywords in a web pages, keywords that search engines can see but the target audience cannot see (most of the time). They stuffed words inside of the <noframes> and <noscript> tags, hoping to boost search engine visibility.

The result? Search engine engineers caught on very quickly. Now search engines either ignore or demote the keywords found in these tags. So, in terms of search engine positioning, they are practically useless.

But back to frames. Should you or should you not use them?

Pros and cons of frames

For the record, one of the first web site designs I ever created was done in frames. It was a real estate site, and the frameset layout was a logical choice, given the size of the web site. The site had no problems ranking well in the search engines for two reasons:

The site was fully navigational and search-engine friendly without the frameset layout, and
There were only two frames, and the main content frame still looked fine without the other frame.

First and most importantly, the content inside of the main frame must be written with keyword-rich text, since that is the frame that contains the information that is most important to the search engines and your site's visitors. All main content frame pages must contain unique title tags, meta tags, alternative text (when applicable), anchor text, and so forth.

Never assume the search engines are only going to index the page that contains instructions for the frameset layout. Search engines will index every page they can access.

Second, the site had a secondary navigation -- text links. As I stated in my Ask the SEO Expert article Image maps and search engine visibility, always have multiple means of navigation, one of which is search engine friendly. I always create sets of text links that correspond to sets of navigation buttons. The main content frame always had a set of navigation links at the bottom of a page and embedded links, when applicable.

Third, if a main content page was the only page that ranked well in the search engines, the still looked aesthetically pleasing without the other frame.

What ended up happening with this site? The web site owner eventually abandoned the frameset layout for an unframed site. Result? More traffic and higher search engine positions.

Frames and usability

Frameset designs pose multiple problems. Sure, they can be search engine friendly and rank well. I have designed many frameset designs whose pages rank well, delivering quality and consistent traffic over time. But it doesn't mean the frameset design is optimal. It just means that it can deliver quality traffic.

When you design and write a site, always design and write primarily for your end users, not the search engines because the search engines won't purchase thousands or millions of dollars of your products and services. Your target audience will. A site should always be optimized for your target audience first, search engines second.

If a site is properly optimized for "human" usability, the site is often search engine friendly by default.

Unfortunately, usability experts continually do not recommend frameset designs. And they don't make that recommendation because they like making blanket statements. They test the effectiveness of the framed and unframed layouts.

I, too, have tested the effectiveness of the framed and unframed versions of the sites I've designed. And, without exception, the unframed design always gets higher traffic and higher conversions. I can attribute the higher traffic and conversions to the removal of the frameset because it's the only attribute that I changed in the design.

I'm not talking about anecdotal evidence ("Well, my site ranks in the top 10 with a framed design...."). Usability experts and people like me do quality testing to verify our recommendations. We test our results over a specific time period, measuring only a single variable at a time. That is really the only way to get reliable data.

Solution

As I stated on p. 146 in the Search Engine Visibility, give your end users the option of navigating your site in the framed and unframed versions. Let your target audience determine the most effective layout.

If you find that your site visitors prefer the framed design, then use that design. If you find they prefer the unframed design, then use that one. You might discover that the unframed design is more effective.

If you are in a situation where you absolutely must have a frameset layout, then you will have to employ a JavaScript workaround on every page of your site, which, quite frankly, is quite time consuming.

My honest opinion? The time it takes to create the frames workaround can be better spent in writing quality content that your target audience wishes to read.

Conclusion

Usability experts, web site designers, and search engine marketers consistently state that end users prefer an unframed web site design to a framed site design. Many of them, particularly the usability experts, do not make blanket statements because they are narcissistic. They genuinely test the effectiveness of both types of designs and ultimately recommend the one that is best for the audience.

If you find that a frameset layout works for you, then by all means, use it. However, don't be afraid to test whether or not your audience prefers the unframed version of your site. You will probably see an increase in traffic and corresponding sales.

Related resources:

Danny Sullivan has an excellent article (the one I stumbled on years ago when I created my first framed site) entitled Search Engines and Frames.

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