Frame Branding

Is frame branding a good idea? Is it detrimental to PR?

[Philiboy]

I currently use frame branding quite a lot on my site i.e. when a visitor follows a link, the site they are lead to opens in the same window but in a frame format, with the top frame belonging to my site. It means that I have to embed the URLs for these links in parameters to the script, so I suspect the links are not spidered. So frame branding may be beneficial for keeping visitors on my site, but I'm not sure whether its going to be detrimental to my search engine ranking or not. Any thoughts?

[cbpayne]

So frame branding may be beneficial for keeping visitors on my site, but I'm not sure whether its going to be detrimental to my search engine ranking or not. Any thoughts?

Is your site really that bad that you need to do this to keep visitors on your site? If your site was good enough your visitors would stay and/or come back.

It is detrimental to your ranking and PR, as there is no way I (and maybe a lot of others) would exchange links with you.

[Teknorat]

Speaking as a user rather than a web master I would never use such a site.

[Timotheos]

There are legit reasons to use this technique (i.e. Google image search is a good example). If it provides a good service to the user then keep it but if it's just a ploy to retain visitors then forget it.

[Philiboy]

Please note that I do have a "click to remove this frame" button on the narrow, unobtrusive top frame. I implemented it to make it easy for visitors to return to my site plus as further advertising. However, actually, I do agree with you, I think I'll remove it. I want my site to be good enough so visitors will book mark it or just use their back button. Plus, I suspect that the search engine spiders will be able to more easily see that I am linking out to all these sites and they will see the site as an authority on my subject matter.

[kaled]

Speaking as a user rather than a web master I would never use such a site.

I use frames. The main frame contains the body text and another frame supplies navigational links. Basically, this means that you can navigate my site without having to scroll up and down looking for links. Of course, there are the normal links in the body text too.

My site may not be the prettiest on the planet, but it is real easy to find your way around. A little javascript keeps it search-engine friendly.

Kaled.

[Philiboy]

This discussion is not about frames (as such), but frame branding - an implementation of frames so that when visitors click on a link away from your site, the new site appears in one frame, while another frame (e.g. a narrow frame at the top) brands the original site and may have links to facilitate the visitor going back to the original page.