Iframe/wrapping of content in Joomla

[coachm]

I'm running a blog on social media using joomla and I want to use a setup of perl scripts I'm familiar with to create a set of pages -- actually it's a directory of sorts that includes the reference material I find and use in a book I'm writing.

I would like to "wrap" the perl script outputs (it's static html) within joomla for aesthetic reasons, and my understanding is it uses iframes for that.

So, the question: Will that have any negative effect on search engine crawling or ranking. While the "framed/wrapped" pages would be available on the site, I wasn't planning on actually linking to them except thru the wrapping process.

It's a nifty solution to do what I want, but there's no point if it kills SE results. It's a relatively new site.

Ideas?

[tedster]

As far as I know, whatever content is within an iframe is served from a different URL, and therefore not directly part of the "on-page" ranking factors for the parent URL.

[Robert Charlton]

It's a nifty solution to do what I want, but there's no point if it kills SE results.

iFrames are often used to keep content away from search engines, so your concerns are well-founded.

Matt Cutts also made a comment in his interview with Eric Enge, which is mentioned in this WebmasterWorld thread... [webmasterworld.com...] ...to the effect that if iFrames become misused a lot, then the Google might make changes regarding how it views them.

This suggests that Google might eventually treat iFrames content as belonging to the parent URL... but I suspect that's a remote possibility, and a long way off if it happened.

[coachm]

My approach has always been to keep things as simple as possible. I think I have a solution that will allow the iframe to show, for convenience, but to route the robots and other visitors to the actual un-iframed site with the same look and feel. Probably the safest way.