Using <noframes> tag to supply keywords for framed sites

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Using <noframes> tag to supply keywords for framed sites

Does using the <noframes> tag to supply keywords work for all the SEs?

catspaw inoz

2:42 am on Aug 22, 2001 (gmt 0)

My client has a framed site but the content pages don't get indexed by the SEs because of the frameset. I have read an article which says that you can place keyword rich text within the <noframes> tags on the frame page.

My question is would this content be indexed by all the search engines or just work with some of them? I have added a noframes page with plenty of good keywords .... but when I did a page analysis at "Submit Director" this didn't increase the word count at all. I'm assuming their analyser simulates the SE robots. Does anyone have any experience with this? Another site I am working on uses a doorway page to supply a few (not many keywords) and I was considering removing that page and using the <noframes> tag instead. Am I better off keeping the doorway page and submitting both the doorway page and the frame page URLs?

Thanks in advance

Macguru

2:58 am on Aug 22, 2001 (gmt 0)

Hello catspaw_inoz,

First a warm welcome to Web Master World. This place is gold.

The <NOFRAME> tag is not recognised by all SE but should never be left empty. I recommend you to use the "site search" feature in the upper menu and to search for "frame". You will be surprised of how many nuggets you will get for this claim.

Good luck!

jatar_k

6:51 am on Aug 22, 2001 (gmt 0)

i try 3 approaches to framed sites. The first is to get it out of frames, 2nd make doorway pages and 3rd noframes. We get OK results with just the noframes tag but I would leave the doorway page as well, it can't hurt. The noframes doesn't give the greatest results but it is better than nothing. Doorway pages work a lot better and the optimum is always to get it out of frames all together.

rencke

7:05 am on Aug 22, 2001 (gmt 0)

>The <NOFRAME> tag is not recognised by all SE but should never be left empty.

Are you 100,0% sure Mac? If so, I will defer to superior knowledge, but it has always been my impression that <NOFRAME> was the only thing simpler spiders managed to read. Example: the Sim Spider [searchengineworld.com] at Search Engine World, which does not follow links in frames, but only in noframes.

I always put lots and lots (10-30 Kb) of properly structured text in there (H1, P, H2, P, P, H2, P etc) with links to all pages in the site. Works wonders!

4eyes

8:40 am on Aug 22, 2001 (gmt 0)

My understanding from reading other posts, is that you need to use the 'no frames' tag AND optimise the page contained within.

Some engines will follow the link to the inside page, some won't, so you need to cover all the angles.

You will also need to allow user landing on the inside page to 'get' the frameset - either with a redirect or noticeable link.

I'm not an frames exponent, but this has worked for me on 3 or 4 sites now - both the frameset and the interior pages get traffic in their own right.

Macguru

12:24 pm on Aug 22, 2001 (gmt 0)

>>Are you 100,0% sure Mac?

No I am not rencke. Can I rephrase that? Some SE, like Northen Lights, recognise the tag, but dont give it much importance. It is very difficult to score high with a frameset on NL and a couple of others. Technically, simple spiders will read the content the <NOFRAME> tag, will also index framesets, but somehow will not list them very good.

I also feed frameset with structured text and images. I often have top position on Google, Fast, MSN and others with framesets. But on some SE, wathever you shake it, you will not go very high with the <NOFRAME> tag.

I did not pick the right word when I sayed I was not "recognised". Reconaissance in French has some gratitude in it. Sorry if this lead to any confusion.

Do we agree that it should contain good text and not left empty? Also some sitemap (or hallway) should be provided to help crawlers to find the framed pages. And some device have to be there to avoid a framed page to be opened alone without any navigation.

WebGuerrilla

4:05 pm on Aug 22, 2001 (gmt 0)

Write your frameset with an external JS and place it in a directory disallowed by your robots txt. Then build your content within the <body> like a normal page. A visitor without JS turned on will get a normal looking page. Visiting spiders won't know it's a frameset and they will crawl it just like any other page.

catspaw inoz

2:02 am on Aug 23, 2001 (gmt 0)

thanks for all the replies! I did use site search to find previous threads on the frames topic and that was very useful, although my head is spinning...lol

it seems to me that if some SEs don't give the <noframes> tag much weight they at least follow the links on it and will index the content they find on internal pages.

I am no great fan of doorway pages just from a usability perspective - why make a visitor view the same information twice? ... and putting 250 words of keyword rich copy makes an entrance page look more like the main page.

However I think I may settle for keeping the doorway page and submitting the URLs of both the doorway page and the frameset page - just to be on the safe side

Thanks for all your good advice
Cate