Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Hi Virago,

Frames are used in website development to add navigation control by allowing you to display multiple HTML pages in one browser window while controlling the contents of each framed area individually. You can then place links in one section that, when selected, displays information in another section of the same browser window.

However, frames can be problematic depending on the search engine and browser:

- Printing a document is harder
- Bookmarking is problematic
- Site may not be indexed by most search engines
- Some older browsers can't read frames

This is because frames don't fit the model of the web in which every page corresponds to a single URL. If a user's query matches the site as a whole, some search engines such as Google returns the frameset (this is the web page itself which describes the number, size & placement of the frames, it doesn't contain content/text). If a user's query matches an individual page on the site, Google returns that page. That individual page is not displayed in a frame - because there may be no frame set corresponding to that page.

Since frames can cause difficulties, the most popular approach to them is don't use them if you don't have to - use tables instead.

f you must use frames, you will need to take extra steps to get your site indexed by search engines which due to length and complexity I can't cover here.

I hope that helps.

Frames in a website are what you use to import another webpage inside your page, like a window

here is an example:

https://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/

see how there are 3 frames, two on the left top and bottom and one big one on the right.

Frames are useful BIG GIANT library sites like the one i have above.

They are bad because what would happen if some one just landed on the right hand box?

Answer: they would have no navigate because the frame is on a different page, and the page that the hand landed on is just a single page.

Advantages of frames:

The main advantage to frames is that they enable parts of the page to remain stationary while the other parts scroll. This is useful for elements you may not want to scroll out of view such as the navigation options or banner advertising. This can be achieved with DHTML ie javascript and html combined


frames unify resources that reside on separate servers. for instance, you may use frames to combine your own material (and navigation graphics) with threaded discussion material generated on a clients sever.

Disadvantages:

Frames are not supported on older browsers

frames might make the site production more complicated because you need to organise multiple files to fill one page.

Navigation through a framed site may be challenging for some ( especially people using alternate browsing devices, eg JAWS the screen reader for blind people., cellphones, PDAs, Black berrys etc etc

Documents nested in frame sets are difficult to book mark as only the top level frame can be book marked. There are workarounds for modern browsers but what about people using windows 95 ( yes they still exist)

Lots of frames increases load time, it puts load on the server.

It is more difficult to track page ( and Ad) impressions when pages use frames.

Framed document are a nuisance for search engines. Content- level documents may be missed in searchs. If contained in the search by a search engine the page might look like this:

https://www.geocities.com/sweetasman01/extra.html

when it is suppose to look like this:

https://www.geocities.com/sweetasman01/frames.html

Do you see where the bight pink sport is? that is a nested frame. A window that calls a another html page to be displayed inside another html document.

It is like a Russian doll, the smaller page goes inside the bigger one.

Here is an example of what all the pages that will be need for a framed site like this one ( 4 frames)

https://www.geocities.com/sweetasman01/frames.html (main page)

Pages that make up the page

https://www.geocities.com/sweetasman01/foot.html
https://www.geocities.com/sweetasman01/extra.html
https://www.geocities.com/sweetasman01/head.html
https://www.geocities.com/sweetasman01/main.html
https://www.geocities.com/sweetasman01/newmain.html

( i made these in Dreamwever fot this question)

If i have not made it clear please email me and i will help you to understand.

Carl Crawford