Using the NOFRAMES Tag

Do not despair! There is an HTML tag called the NOFRAMES tag, which, when used properly, gives the search engine spiders the information they need to index your page correctly. I believe it was designed to give frames-incapable browsers, early versions of browsers that cannot read or interpret the FRAMESET tags, the ability to "see" the information on a framed site.

Unfortunately, too many sites that utilize this NOFRAMES tag put the following words into it: "You are using a browser that does not support frames. Update your browser now to view this page." It might as well say, "We are putting the kiss of death on our Web site and have no interest in being found in the search engines for relevant keywords regarding our site! Thanks for not visiting our site because you couldn't find it!"

What happens when you do the above is that the engines will read your TITLE and META tags (if you even included them) and the above information that the browser is frames-incapable, and that is what they will index for your site.

Try a search at AltaVista for "does not support frames," and guess what? 260,882 pages are found! Nearly all of them are framed sites that used those words in their NOFRAMES tag. I bet that the circular-saw maker whose site is ranked number 1 for those keywords doesn't have a clue that he has put the kiss of death on his Web site! I also bet his site is nowhere to be found under the keyword "circular saws." (It isn't.)

If you want to have a framed site for whatever reason, then for goodness' sake, use your NOFRAMES tag properly! The proper usage of this tag is to take the complete HTML code from your inner page and copy it into the NOFRAMES tag.

Most Web designers use frames for ease of navigation. That is, they have a frame on the left side of the page with a static navigational bar or buttons that never change. When someone clicks on a button on the left, the frame to the right brings up the new page accordingly. Because of this type of design, there are usually no navigational links on any of the inner, framed pages.

Why is this bad? It's bad because you could (and should) optimize these inner pages to rank high in the search engines. But if you do, and someone searching in the engines finds them, they will be what I call orphaned pages.

I'm sure you've come across these at one time or another in your searches: a page that has a bit of information about what you were searching for but offers no way to get to the rest of the site!

Savvy Internet users might look at the URL and try finding the root directory, but most users don't have a clue about doing that. It's too bad for the site owner, who just lost some potential eyeballs, or worse, a potential customer.

If you use a framed design, it is absolutely imperative to place navigational links on all your inner pages. At the very least, include a button that links back to your home page. However, I would recommend that you have links to all your major category pages, as this will help the search engine spiders visit all the pages, index them all, and rank them high!

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