Forum Moderators: open
Since that time my web site has not ranked near as well. I am thinking that the problem is the fact that I have too many links on each of my pages, and in fact, if I add all my links, as I need to do, there will be more navigation code than there is content on each of my pages. I understand that search engines prefer pages with less than 1000 words total.
For years I have noticed that the sites that always rank well for my keywords usually only have no more than 18 to 20 links total on each page, while I need to have around 60 to 75 links on my pages to be able to present all my information where visitors can easily find it.
I have removed many links from my home page and my other pages, trying to keep down the number of repetitive links on every page, but by doing this I am keeping visitors from finding many pages of good information.
I made a separate page that contains the links that are not found on my home page, and I tell visitors "find more information and articles here", but most don't take the time to click that link, so that hasn't worked.
I believe I want to try frames again so I can take the navigation bar of too many links off every page. In the past I placed only a few links at the bottom of each page, so if a page got orphaned, the visitor could still reach pages, and I also gave instructions to enter my frames by clicking a link to go to my home page.
I have also added script that now will force orphaned pages into the frameset, so that problem is solved. Now I have to figure out how I can make those pages also more printer friendly.
I have read threads that recommend using SSI instead of frames for navigation, but if I use SSI, won't the search engines still see all my links on each web page?
If I use frames, only one page, my nav frame page will contain all my many page links.
In the past I used noframes with my frame site, and my site was prominent in the search engines. My trouble seemed to begin when I ditched the frames.
I would really appreciate input on whether you think frames is the best option for me, based on the fact that I want visitors to have easy access to many page links from my home page, and I don't want search engines to penalize my site for having too many links and too much duplicate navigation code on every page.
Thanks
I have read threads that recommend using SSI instead of frames for navigation, but if I use SSI, won't the search engines still see all my links on each web page?
Yes, they will. The navigation will be added by the server before the document is sent.
In my experience, keeping the number of links low on a page is a real help in ranking. I'm not 100% clear about why that might be, but over the years it almost always seems to work out that way.
Do you really need all those links directly accessible with one click? They might actually overwhelm and confuse (some of) your users instead of helping them find your content. Is there no way to hierarchically structure your content? That's the first thing I would try, and it will make your site friendlier to both human visitors and search engines. A huge menu very often is a symptom of an information architecture that wasn't thought out well enough.
Nielsen cites useablility studies with the conclusion that frames generally have negative impact, except for sites with several thousand pages, where they can help to make access easier again, if done right. I don't know if your site falls into that category. In general, frames cause many useability problems, part of which you've already addressed. I would think very carefully before chosing that path.
SSI won't solve your search engine problems, but it may be a way to make site management easier for you in the background.
<edited>
Some spiders don't favor frames because it's additional work to track down the content. However, if you have a ton of links where you are making it appear like a frames page, but are instead swapping out the visibility of div objects, the spider might indeed read all of those divs you have and decide that this might be a spam site. It also might look at how many things you have with a property of "hidden" and think you are pulling a fast one. This could be why your frames page did better, because the spider see these links spead out across multiple pages rather than all being on one.
The biggest problem with frames isn't so much usability, unless it's done the wrong way or for the wrong reasons. The REAL, unavoidble problem, is that you can't link someone to a sub page of your site through things like email and still have your nav frame or wrapping frame appear. You would have to link them to the content without the nav frame, unless you want to bother with scripting of query string arguments in the url links.
<Sorry, no example sites.
See Forum Charter [webmasterworld.com]>
[edited by: tedster at 11:42 pm (utc) on Aug. 13, 2006]
swapping out the visibility of div objects
That can be a nasty thing for a site of any size -- it puts all the content into one huge html document, and that is a rankings disaster in most cases.
We seem to have this pro-farmes/anti-frames conversation on a regular basis. One of the best threads we ever had was this one, in the Forum Library:
Framed! Pros and Cons [webmasterworld.com]
I will try to answer the questions that were brought up in the previous posts:
Concerning Bird's comments: I have asked myself whether I need all those links on my pages, and through monitoring what my visitors do when I have less links, as opposed to when I have the links that I think I need, I believe I do need to have a good many links on each page, too many to have my site rank favorably.
In the past I have used hierarchical structures, I used PVII Pop Menu Magic where I had button trees that went 3 or 4 buttons deep, and the subject buttons had their own navigation pages that also contained the more specific links.
I had my links very well organized, and my visitors liked this navigation, but the code was so long, even with using external style sheets and external .js, and I still had the problem with too many links on all my pages.
My site is <edited>. It is sort of a mixture between an informational site and a retail site. I have been writing articles and pages of educational information for 7 years and so my number of pages have continued to increase.
I see that <another site> uses a doorway page to divide their retail/info site into informational and retail areas, however, when I click to go either way, the links seem to be the same on all the pages in their site. Also, I am afraid to use doorway pages.
Concerning Blip's comments: Thanks, I do use CSS with external style sheets, and I use CSS to make buttons, but I checked and I don't have many divs in the code. I use class to build the buttons. I wonder if too many class elements could cause a problem? I don't use any hidden properties.
I have found a script that forces all orphaned pages into my frames, and it also allows visitors to bookmark and e-mail the page URL. I tried bookmarking a test page, and when I opened the bookmarked page it opened correctly in frames.
I am not considering using frames for convenience. I would use templates if that were the problem; I have used templates in the past.
I know there are many drawbacks to using frames, however, with the script I have solved the orphan page and bookmark problem. Concerning the search engines not liking frames issue, my site is not doing well in search engines now, so I don't think frames can hurt my rankings.
I guess my foremost goal is placing all my content where visitors can easily find it. I think this means that I either go back to my Pop Menu Magic tree navigation, where I use javascript and have numerous links on each page of my site, and I already know through experience that those pages are not seen favorably by search engines, or I use frames. With either choice there are drawbacks.
What I might do is put up the frames and see what happens with visitors. I know that some people will not like them; I just remember that when I used frames I had many more people visiting more pages in my site, and many times I had positive comments about how easy my site was to navigate, and how much good information it contained. As it is now, I am afraid many people leave my site without ever knowing of all the information it contains.
Thanks again to everyone.
<Sorry, no specific sites.
See Forum Charter [webmasterworld.com]>
[edited by: tedster at 3:16 pm (utc) on Aug. 14, 2006]
when I used frames I had many more people visiting more pages in my site
I always say that measurement is better than any opinion. If you are convinced the stats were better, then for your audience, returning to frames might be the right move.
One caution -- a log analysis of a framed site will usually show a higher number of "pages" because even one request for the frameset document results in 3 or more "pages" being loaded into one window. And because of dynamic IP assignments from services like AOL, your stats may also show a unique visitor for each of those framed documents, when in "reality" there is just one user.
I realize that when using frames every page called will be a call for 4 different URLs (my nav page, my header page, my content page, and my frameset), thanks for reminding me of that fact, and I will also have to watch my server for overload, but right now I am using only about 10% of my server.
Besides my site visits, my opinion that my site did better with frames is also based on the fact that visitors spent more time and visited more pages, and I received more phone calls, more e-mails, and more orders!
Of course there used to be more prominent search engines than the 3 major ones there are today, and so it was easier to be seen in search engines back then because not everyone used the same 3 search engines, so I know that will also make a difference, however, I want to make sure the visitors that I do receive spend more time at my site.
I am going to do a test with frames, to see what happens, I can always go back to my old design, since I am keeping all my old files ready to upload.
Thanks again for taking the time to help me make my decision.
sites that always rank well for my keywords usually only have no more than 18 to 20 links total on each page, while I need to have around 60 to 75 links on my pages to be able to present all my information where visitors can easily find it.
This feeling of "I want to show every visitor every possibility" is common, however on all but the smallest of brochure sites, it can be a very deep pitfall. In a physical store (I used to be in retail management) you just can't do it, because there is only so much space at eye level, and only so much space at the front of the store.
Did you know that the old "three click rule" has been strongly disproved in user testing? There are approaches to website structure and menu labelling that "keep your visitors clicking" without the drawbacks of a frameset, AND without loading up the pages with 70 navigation links.
Perhaps these threads about Information Archictecture will offer you some directions that you can use in your case.
Information Architecture for the Small Site - part 1 [webmasterworld.com]
Information Architecture for the Small Site - part 2 [webmasterworld.com]
Putting information architecture into practice [webmasterworld.com]
And although not directly on your topic, there's another thread that makes some useful observations. Those dhtml dropdown menus often suffer from the same "show the visitor everything at once" syndrome. So here's a thread about that (my own strongly held opinion leads off.)
Mouseover Menus - or DHTML indigestion [webmasterworld.com]
To sum up, Information Architecture is a very real discipline -- an outgrowth of Library Science -- and it has a powerful effect when applied intelligently on a website. It's probably the most ignored discipline I've seen, but it can make a huge, positive difference in the way a site performs.
