Getting rid of frames!

Considering converting a large framed site to no frames

[doobie]

We have a large site currently with a top frame (navigation) / bottom frame (content) and would like to go to no frames when we redesign. The site has about 10 main sections.
Is there a best way to do this more efficiently in terms of:
1. the conversion
2. updating future files
e.g. layers, ssi (Dreamweaver Library items)?

[DrDoc]

Well, one important thing to think about is the navigation. You might want to include the menu using SSI or similar.

Also, if you're redoing the site .. consider converting it to CSS/CSS-P and XHTML. It is definately worth it.

[keyplyr]

If your server supports it, the Server Side Includes (SSI) is the best way to go. A search should turn up lots of info.

If you can't use SSI, then importing HTML via a document.writeln JavaScript works well also, in fact faster - but a small % of users may have JS disabled.

Either way, you just need to maintain/update one file

[kapow]

Frames are bad for search engiens. I think importing menus etc with JavaScript will impact SEO too (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

I keep everthing in plain html, it takes a little longer to make changes but is good for SEs

[lazerzubb]

The most important thing, when changin a design is thinking about your clients/customers response.
Don't change and already good design just because you want to get higher ranking.
Always focus on the customer, ALWAYS, because you have to remember it's not the search engine who will give you money, it's the user.
But if you feel that the visitor, will appriciate the new design, then it's OK to change it, and optimize it in the same round. (IMHO)

Sorry for getting out of the subject here.

But i would also suggest using SSI, it's a very easy way to change information.
And on my sites about 97% of the users support Javascript (if you are going to use keyplyr's solution).

[tedster]

Some encouragement for your project ---

I "flattened" a framed site for a client about two years ago. I was somewhat concerned with changing the user experience, so I didn't change the appearance very much. Just that now the nav section and header scrolled away, instead of staying fixed. I also retained the page filenames I had used for the content frame, to avoid 404's on the search engine listings that existed.

It was really good to see the response in the actual stats. Sales went way up within a few months (improved SE rank helped that I'm sure) but the most important stat for me was page views per unique, which more than doubled almost immediately. The average user was clearly hanging around longer and looking at more.

I've said this before, but frames just don't make sense to the entire online population. For a certain subsection (my guess would be the technically and analytically oriented) they seem like the best thing going. But others (and a significant number of others) are just mystified.

[Ranger]

I would take the framed navigation elements and put them in some kind of page include - CFM, ASP, or PHP - but NOT .js menus, as I was told in two different forums that search engines WON'T crawl javascript.

If you get really creative, you can create a single page template and a database that drives it. Then you can just copy and paste your old site's info into the database, and away you go. New pages can be entered in an interface in the backend.

But it all depends on tech level and most importantly, budget!

[Jas0n]

Usine SSI, is there any impact for SE crawling (ie. it hard for a spider to crawl a page that uses SSI, say for main navigation links)?