Re: Search engine questions

>I am in the middle of making a page, and I am wondering how
>search engine results will affect it.
>
>Since I have a table of contents page, with a LOT of sub-pages
>linked to it, I decided to use frames, table of contents on one side,
>and the information on the other side.

Frames and search engines do not get along very well.  A major reason why 
one should not (except very rarely) use frames.

Which pages the search engines will index will depend on the ROBOTS 
meta-tag.  E.g., two of the possibilities are:

         To index a page, and to follow links from that page in further 
indexing:
                 <meta name="ROBOTS" content="INDEX,FOLLOW">

         To neither index a page, nor to follow links from that page:
                 <meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW">

So you could use the former on your TOC frame, and the latter on your other 
pages.  However:  this will likely result in the search engines not 
indexing your site as well as they should.  Also, it will result in the 
search engines bringing visitors to your TOC page, and not to the frameset 
page where you want them to arrive so that they would see a framed site.

You're really best off enabling the search engines to index any page with 
content your visitors might be seeking, but this will mean that visitors 
will arrive at any of these pages, and not in a frameset!  You can get 
around this with JavaScript (if JavaScript is enabled!) but this opens up 
another can of worms.

Bottom line:  best not to use frames.  Far fewer nightmares.


-
Chuck Upsdell, www.upsdell.com
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