Following links in IFRAME alternative content

Does Googlebot follow such links?

[Wizard]

I have noticed that Googlebot doesn't follow any links inside NOFRAMES and NOSCRIPT tags - I guess it's because these links are 'hidden' from normal user. I was successfully using javascript to hide FRAMESET and NOFRAMES tags to force Googlebot to follow these links.

Now I'm going to make IFRAME - based layout, with main content in IFRAME and its text copy in IFRAME alternative content (as recommended by W3C). I expect Googlebot will index this alternative content properly, but will it follow links in it?

Has someone some experience about Googlebot following links which are placed inside IFRAME tag, I mean in situation like this:

<iframe src=page.html>
<p>Some text content</p>
<a href=a_link.html>This is a link inside IFRAME</a>
<p>Some text content</p>
</iframe>

will link to 'a_link.html' be followed by Googlebot? I've doubts because I've experienced that in similiar situation with FRAMESET:

<frameset cols=*,*>
<frame src=page1.html>
<frame src=page2.html>
</frameset>
<noframes>
<p>Some text content</p>
<a href=a_link.html>This is a link inside IFRAME</a>
<p>Some text content</p>
</noframes>

link to 'a_link.html' is not followed by Googlebot.

[Ellio]

In my experience Google do not index IFRAME content.

If you look a result from a page with IFRAME content their is no keyword highlighting in the IFRAME text in the Google Cache page...

It seems to ignore it completely if the content is on another server but not sure if the content is a page in the same site.

[Wizard]

It seems to ignore it completely if the content is on another server but not sure if the content is a page in the same site.

I'm afraid you've misunderstood my question. I asked about IFRAME alternative content, the content between <IFRAME> and </IFRAME>, which is a part of the page with IFRAME, so it's always on the same server.

I didn't ask about the content which users see in the IFRAME, pointed by IFRAME SRC attribute, but the content intended for browsers not supporting IFRAME, which (according to W3C) should be placed between <IFRAME> and </IFRAME> - and the point is not if this content is indexed, but if the links inside it are followed normally.

[Ellio]

Ok my mistake.

[Nikke]

They index my AdSense backup page, and follow all links in it.

For new sites with just three of four pages I have often seen the AdSense backup when using the site:www.domain.com search.

[danny]

They index my AdSense backup page, and follow all links in it.

I had to block my AdSense alternates in robots.txt early last year, to avoid a search penalty.

[Clinton Labombard]

How about if you used a longdesc in that iframe? Would Google follow that or continue to ignore the iframe?

[Wizard]

I didn't check longdesc but I suppose Googlebot ignore it because it's less standard attribute than src. Googlebot follows src links but I don't expect it to follow longdesc links.

I think I have verified that Googlebot follows links in iframe alternative content. I've tested it putting code:

<iframe src=somepage.html>
<a href=newpage.html>some text</a>
</iframe>

on daily crawled PR3/PR4 page. It's unlikely that someone added a link to newpage.html anywhere else, and after a few days newpage.html shows up in site: search.

So it seems Googlebot follows links in iframe while doesn't follow links in noframes. It's a reason to change framed sites from traditional framesets to iframe-based layouts - in most cases it's possible to do and it appears that sites using iframe will be much better crawled by Google that sites using frameset.

[Clinton Labombard]

I had forgotten all about that. Thanks for mentioning it.

[Iguana]

It's a reason to change framed sites from traditional framesets to iframe-based layouts

I don't follow your logic. Google will index framed sites perfectly well. You indicate that it doesn't index the links in a <noframes> section, which is something different.

With iFrames, you have found that Google indexes links in the iframe alternative text. But the question is does it indexes and ranks the page indicated in the iframe src. It certainly didn't in the past.

[Wizard]

does it indexes and ranks the page indicated in the iframe src

I don't want Google to index and rank the page from inside the iframe. I will even block its URL in robots.txt! Because I don't want Google referred visitors to see just one frame, but whole page, including the iframe and all stuff around it.

That's why I care to provide iframe alternative text and want its links followed - because I want whole page to rank. And, needless to say, my site provides a separate frameset for every possible frame content. It's not only for Google, because it the era of tabbed browsing users need whole framesets to open when they middle-click on links.

I've already achieved this with regular frameset, but I had to hide it with js. Now I want my page to be 100% Google guidelines compliant, so I didn't like the idea of js hiding the iframe code. One of reasons I'm moving to iframe is that I couldn't do it so clean with standard frameset. The other reason is it will consist of smaller number of html files so it will load faster.

I wish IE handled 'position:fixed' CSS command so I could forget about iframe and code this layout in single html file. Can't make the site for Mozilla only can I? :)