Question
I have a friend who is having her web site built.
the guy building the site is using front page (shudder) and has decided to use frames.
Left frame holds logo and navigational buttons. Right frame has home page and content pages.
Now the problem with this set up is that when you click on a button in the left frame the right frame changes to the content for that button.
This would be fine except that the URL never changes. Every page shows the url to the home page. Her customers would never be able to bookmark the pages or send links to a particular product.
Is there a way to make the URL reflect the page a customer is on when you are using frames?
I told her to ask her web guy but I don't think he knows much outside of front page and I have never worked with frames.
Thanks in advance!
Answer
I may be wrong but think Google will NOT index framed sites. All the sites I have looked at in frames were not indexed except for homepage.
Mike
Answer
Ugh! I'm not fond of frames.
As far as I know, you cannot change the URL. You can bookmark the inside pages, but it's something that's not obvious to the casual viewer. Here's some info, although it might be dated:
http://www.mydesignprimer.com/web/60022.html
The more important problem, to me, is when you returned to a bookmarked page it only shows you the right-side window--not the navigation tools on the left. There's a way around that. I think what people do is check the HTTP Referrer info and redirect to the frames page, but there might be a more efficient way.
Some of the microsoft sites do very interesting things with frames. They look good, but I still find them a pain to navigate.
Your friend might want to also consider the ease of updating her website. Unless she, too, has frontpage and knows how to use it, updating will be a nightmare.
Answer
Thank you Jayne and Mike,
Mike I hadn't thought about it from a search engine standpoint. I didn't realize that would even be a problem. ughhhh that is just not a good thing.
Jayne, I hate frames too. I know that at times they are a necessary evil but they are just not my favorite thing.
I tried working with frames when I was redoing my web site eons ago and ended up scrapping the idea when it became so annoying.
As to FrontPage - I have never used it but I hate the hosed up way it seems to work. When ever I try to wade through FrontPage code it gives me a headache.
I was wondering if she would be able to maintain her site without FrontPage so you answered another question I had there. Thank you!
Anywhooo thanks for that link. Lots of good information there that I will pass along.
As always you are the best!
Huggs,
Tanya
Answer
Originally Posted by Tanya
This would be fine except that the URL never changes. Every page shows the url to the home page. Her customers would never be able to bookmark the pages or send links to a particular product.
Just one of the many drawbacks to using frames. Lots of people won't even use frames anymore. There are ways to allow users to bookmark the actual url of the page but it requires more than just basic HTML, things like PHP and ASP. It just seems so much easier not to use frames to begin with and to not use Frontpage unless absolutely necessary.