Some help please

[Steggles - Home Office]

Help please. I am a relative newbie and have just been told that my website
will never get anywhere on the search engines because it is in Framesets.
Sadly, my Frontpage knowledge and certainly HTML knowledge doesnt run to
this.

Any ideas how to convert it to a non frames site?

Simon

 

[chris leeds]

can you provide a link to the site?

if you're using the standard menu/content arrangement, there's a way to do
the conversion using the FrontPage include page component.

basically (in all your non-menu pages) you'd lay a cell to the left of the
content, then insert/ web component/ include page. browse to the menu page
and include it.

you may have to adjust the link targets and other stuff but at least you'll
only have to do it on the menu page and FrontPage will automatically update
the content as it's included into all the other pages.

there is also JavaScript you can use that will call the frameset down onto
the content page should the page be browsed to directly (without the
frameset). there's a good example of this type script here:
http://echoecho.com

HTH

--
Chris Leeds,
Microsoft MVP FrontPage

The email address on this posting is a "black hole". I got tired of all the
spam.
Please feel free to contact me here:
http://nedp.net/contact/

 

[Murray]

You have been told wrong.

Search engines can easily spider and rank frame pages. Actually that's part
of the problem. What could then happen is that your content frame will be
ranked, and if it is found in a search and visited, the browser will only go
to the content page, and not the frameset. In other words, your visitor
will see the site's content but not get any navigation.

This is only one of the many troublesome problems with frames.

You can easily solve this by including a plain link on each content page to
the frameset, e.g.,

If you have found this page using a search engine's link, then please click
here to return to the frameset

and then hyperlink it back to the frameset.

There are other ways to manage this problem, but they involve adding
javascript to the frame pages to automatically reload the frameset - I sense
that you are not ready for this! 8)

Alternatively you could try Chris' suggestion.

 

[Steggles - Home Office]

Sorry gents, the website is www.stegles.com - told you I was a newbie!

Does this give you any more pointers.

Please also take into consideration that I am no expert programmer,
(actually, I am crap - I simply use Frontpage).

Simon

 

[chris leeds]

you missed the g in your link.

you don't need to worry about your frameset. you've got some sort of
navigation in every page so even if a page gets picked up without the
frameset your frameset seems to be just one big frame getting filled by
pages targeting their containing frame.

unless you're unhappy with it aesthetically there's no real reason to worry,
your friend should've looked closer.

HTH

--
Chris Leeds,
Microsoft MVP FrontPage

The email address on this posting is a "black hole". I got tired of all the
spam.
Please feel free to contact me here:
http://nedp.net/contact/

 

[Murray]

The frameset is only being used to 'cloak' the real URL.

 

[chris leeds]

right, so there's really no detriment for search engines other than he won't
have his preferred url in the browser.

--
Chris Leeds,
Microsoft MVP FrontPage

The email address on this posting is a "black hole". I got tired of all the
spam.
Please feel free to contact me here:
http://nedp.net/contact/

 

[Murray]

Yessiree. That's about the size of it.

 

[Steggles - Home Office]

Gents,

The comment came from the company Netmechanic.com, who are a website
optimisation company. They seem to have a fair bit of clout, so who is
wrong, you or them?

Also, how come google hardly picks up any of my pages?

Simon

 

[chris leeds]

Them!
If you're falling down on search engine I'd guess at page titles. lately
page titles rather than meta tags cause the most bang for the buck. you've
got plenty of content so they should be reading that. Incoming links from
other sites helps a great deal too. you may also want to register with
www.dmoz.org since, it's my understanding, that the search engines use it as
a launching pad.
btw, net mechanic is just a program it's prone to over reaching and
misunderstanding in ways that experienced humans aren't. oh, also see
www.searchenginewatch.com for search engine info. there's also some good se
stuff at www.sitepoint.com


HTH

--
Chris Leeds,
Microsoft MVP FrontPage

The email address on this posting is a "black hole". I got tired of all the
spam.
Please feel free to contact me here:
http://nedp.net/contact/

 

[Murray]

In this case it is certainly Netmechanic. If you are paying them for this
advice, then you should reconsider, in my opinion. At worst, their caution
is wrong and at best it is misleading.

Your site is NOT using frames except to cloak the URL. The use of frames
causes SearchEngines no problems at all. HOWEVER, the redirection/cloaking
may be the cause of a problem with SE's not the frames.

Also, how come google hardly picks up any of my pages?

I'd start with the code on the pages. SE's like page titles, semantic
markup, alt/title tags, overall page content, outgoing links, nearly
everything else on your pages, and then meta tags, in that order. Have you
optimized those elements?

 

[Steggles - Home Office]

Gents,

Some more help please....

Is there another way of taking the cloak of the URL frames out of the site
so that I can get more pages indexed by dmoz and other search engines?

Simon

PS What is MVP - Dont laugh, I dont know

 

[Murray]

Put all the files at http://www.steggles.com and don't redirect. Or get a
host where you can do that.

MVP = Microsoft Most Valued Professional, I believe.

 

[Steggles - Home Office]

Murray,

Indeed sir, a most valued professional you are....

I am hosting with Blueyonder, but I have redirected with easyspace, (I
think). Do you know of a way around this?

Bloody hell, you are clever!

Simon

PS what line of business are you in?? are you a pro developer?

 

[Tom Pepper Willett]

While Murray is good, he is not a MVP ;-)

For info on the MVP Program, see:


--
===
Tom "Pepper" Willett
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
---
About FrontPage 2003:
http://office.microsoft.com/home/office.aspx?assetid=FX01085802
FrontPage 2003 Product Information:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/frontpage/prodinfo/default.mspx
Understanding FrontPage:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/understanding/frontpage/
===

| Murray,
|
| Indeed sir, a most valued professional you are....
|
| I am hosting with Blueyonder, but I have redirected with easyspace, (I
| think). Do you know of a way around this?
|
| Bloody hell, you are clever!
|
| Simon
|
| PS what line of business are you in?? are you a pro developer?
| | > Put all the files at http://www.steggles.com and don't redirect. Or get
a
| > host where you can do that.
| >
| > MVP = Microsoft Most Valued Professional, I believe.
| >
| > --
| > Murray
| >
| > | > > Gents,
| > >
| > > Some more help please....
| > >
| > > Is there another way of taking the cloak of the URL frames out of the
| site
| > > so that I can get more pages indexed by dmoz and other search engines?
| > >
| > > Simon
| > >
| > > PS What is MVP - Dont laugh, I dont know
| >
| >
|
|

 

[Murray]

Awwww - man!

 

[chris leeds]

Let me jump in here a little late;
why not just host all the sites on a good windows server and run it the
conventional way.
here's a guy with good prices, and he's proven himself to me personally as
being knowledgeable and helpful;
http://arendkay.net

HTH

btw, good hosting and correctly maintained extensions can ameliorate all
kinds of problems.


--
Chris Leeds,
Microsoft MVP FrontPage

The email address on this posting is a "black hole". I got tired of all the
spam.
Please feel free to contact me here:
http://nedp.net/contact/