Your Questions About
Framed Pages: Q - "Our new website designer is suggesting that he should do our site in frames. Are framed pages good design? A software programmer friend told us 'no way..!' Who is right?" A - We have to agree with your nerd friend. Avoid using frames if there is any other way to do the site, (there always is.) Here are 6 reasons why frames are "out." (With a little more thought we could probably find a couple more. . .) Fire your designer if they suggest using frames because that same person probably doesn't know much about usability or search engine optimization either. - Impossible for people to bookmark pages in the frames.
- More difficult to put links to framed pages from other websites. Even if there is a link to that framed page it is then out-of-context. 99% of framed sites we've seen offer NO way for someone to get from an out-of-context page back to the home page.
Even if a framed site is indexed by search engines, when it is found by a searcher, it will be out-of-context. A large percentage of web users don't know how to go from that out-of-context page to the home page unless you give them a link.
- Links from other sites are absolutely necessary for recognition and placement in search engines such as Goggle. It's becoming necessary with other major search engines as well. The more you do to discourage links, the worse off you will be -- "link popularity" is king, and search engine optimized sites don't use frames.
- Also difficult, (for most people impossible), to send a link from a framed inner page to someone else.
- Many people actually print out pages before reading them if they are more than a couple of paragraphs. Some people have problems printing out the framed page. (Don't give your visitor a rough time.)
- Lack of flexibility: Some pages work better with full width and nothing down either side, frames make it very hard to switch between different page layouts.
Take a look at some of the major news and magazine sites or some of the really big transactional sites and portals, Ubid, E-bay, Yahoo. Or take a look at a typical insurance site such as: www.allstate.com/Home/Home.asp None of the major sites on the Internet use frames anymore. You might say it was a fad that ended three years ago. Unfortunately, some designers still don't "get it." True, a framed site offers the designer a more consistent canvas upon which to build a site, but the disadvantages are simply not worth it if you care about having a pervasive Internet presence!
Q - "We have a framed site now. ls there anything you can suggest to fix it?" A - We can help provide a "fix" for some of the problems presented by a framed site, but quite frankly, if the site is less a few dozen pages and several years old it's usually easier to just save the text and graphics and start over. For the slight additional investment you will have a fully functional, up-to-date Internet presence. For additional design information see: website design questions and Meta Tag Questions and Search Engines Questions If your website hasn't got the right stuff under the hood, you don't stand a chance of winning the race!
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