Q and A: Does Google Sitemaps eliminate the need to optimize a site built with frames?

Dear Kalena...

I have two sites; One www.alpine-property.com is top of Google rankings for all my chosen keywords, it has no frames, daily updated content and lots of inbound links, so not surprising.

My other site www.alptitude.com is the dunce. Frames, static content and just a few inbound links. I have keyword friendly text in the no frames tag and a simple site map. I also have a few pages of no frames content, these are the pages indexed by Google. I obviously know how to fix this, but the time required to rewrite the site in a no frames way is very large, it has a lot of transactional code on a linked secure server which I use to run the business.

In the meantime I am interested in the effect of using the Google Sitemap tool. Will this eliminate the frames problem? The Google FAQs about this ask me to submit both the frameset url and the url of each target page. This sort of suggests that they will be able to index all the content.

Steve

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Steve

Thanks for the caffeine. The answer to your question is yes and no. Sure, Google might be able to index your frames pages outside of the frames-context and eventually match up your content and work out what your site's about. But why make it so difficult? And why take the risk when you can spend a little time bringing your site into the 21st century and ditching the frames?

It's not only search engines that the frames might offend. Searchers tend not to like frames-based sites either and unless you start taking your site seriously, you can't expect visitors to. It's not that difficult to replace your frames pages with more modern code.

If you want to continue pretending it's 1997, at least check Danny Sullivan's Search Engines and Frames Tutorial to make sure your frames pages are optimized as much as possible. Follow the instructions on Google's Webmaster Tools for frames-based sites, create an XML sitemap and track the indexing of all your pages to see if the framed ones get indexed. My bet is they don't.

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Q and A: Why has our site suddenly dropped out of Google?

Dear Kalena...

Hi there, I have done a lot of work optimizing my wife's web site and succeeded in getting the site to number one on Google, Yahoo and MSN for the search term - "childminder milton keynes" - It took me 3 months to do it and her business has boomed. She is now completely booked up. I do regular checks to ensure the site is still no 1 for the search term and on Yahoo and MSN the site is still at number 1, however, on Google the site isn't even listed in the first 15 pages whereas 2 weeks ago it was indeed listed number 1. I am completely baffled, can you help please.

Thank you very much.
Mark

Kalena's Answer:

Hi Mark

First up, thanks for the caffeine contribution, it really helps! Now, about that site.

I've run the site through Google's Site Status Tool and according to the results, it is still being indexed, with the last visit by Googlebot on 14 January. However: the current Google cache of the site is completely blank and the Google Toolbar PageRank for the site is zero out of 10. Both these things indicate a major problem.

Now, I know the site is over a year old and that you last made changes over a month ago, so my guess is that rather than the aging delay, an algorithm penalty or other such manual suppression, Googlebot encountered problems when indexing the site last, which resulted in zero pages being indexed and stored. Naturally, the site has dropped off the charts because there is zero information stored in Google's datacenter as a result of the indexing and caching issue.

However, I'm not surprised Googlebot had trouble indexing the site. It breaks all the rules for search engine compatibility by using outdated Frames technology. Honestly! Frames are sooooo 1996. Search engines have always had trouble indexing frames-based sites and haven't gotten much better at it over the years. Search engine spiders generally only see the master frame-set (the page pulling all the frames together), not the individual frames. Consequently, there is no content for the search engine to index, apart from the content of the NoFrames element.

Because search engine spiders index sites by following links and because there are usually no links within the frame-set HTML code, search engines are usually unable to index frames-based sites beyond the home page. If you insist on using such dated design technology, you absolutely need to give the search engines a juicy No Frames tag to suck on. Yours currently states:

"Sorry, the Little Steppers website is only veiwable (sic) through a frame compatible browser. Please upgrade to a frame compatible browser."

What does that tell a search engine about your business? Zero, zilch, zip. The only reason your site was ranking on Google for "childminder milton keynes", was because you used that phrase within your Title Tag.

Ideally, a short keyword-filled description of the site should be included in the NoFrames element, as well as a link to the site map or main links page, which acts like a signpost for search engines so they know where to find and index further site content. Danny Sullivan wrote a terrific tutorial about how to optimize frames-based sites. Make sure you read it. But if you are really serious about optimizing your wife's site for search engines, you'll update the technology to a design that is search engine friendly.

To fix your immediate problem, here's what I suggest:

• Verify your site with Google's Webmaster Tools, check for site errors and study Googlebot's indexing patterns.
  
  
• Create and upload an XML sitemap to Google Sitemaps and study the results via Webmaster Tools. See the free sitemap creator that I recommend.
  
  
• Use Danny's tutorial to reestablish the Frames Context for each page on your site so search engines can jump from one page to the next when indexing.
  
  
• Give Frames the flick!
  

Oh and one last thing, you are using keyword-stuffed ALT IMG tags on your home page. That is a real Google no no. Better nip that in the bud before you DO get penalized.

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Q and A: Why doesn't my web site rank for any specific keyword?

Dear Kalena...

I have a web site www.narendran.co.nr, this web site does not getting any ranking in search engine for any specific keyword. Could I know what is the reason for this?

Naren

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Naren

Oh boy, where do I start? Here goes:

1) The site is powered by www.freedomain.co.nr which uses URL redirection to display your content. As far as search engines are concerned, there is no site at www.narendran.co.nr.

2) The site uses Frames to display the redirected content. Frames are notorious for causing problems for search engines. If you want your site indexed, you don't use frames.

3) The content displayed on www.narendran.co.nr via the URL redirection actually comes from another site: www.narenmunna.com.

4) Both domains listed above display identical content. Even if they could index both sites (which they can't), most search engines would choose to only index and list one site.

If you want your site to be taken seriously by search engines and users, you need to use your own domain and host your site properly, not piggy-back it on some free service and duplicate the content of another site.

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