Does using iframes hurt SEO?

I'm getting a new site coded for a niche article site. My question is, does using iframes for the navigation bar/ads (so I only update 1 file to change the entire site) hurt SEO?

Thanks in advance,
Colin

 

yes,in my opinion its hardly hurts seo .

 

Yeah.........

 

Yes, coz the bots can not read the content from iframe (I guess)

 

Firstly, using includes is a better way of doing what you want to do. PHP, ASP or any server side language allows you to use includes so that you make changes to your navigation from a single file.

In PHP...

<?php
include('my-navigation.php');
?>

my-navigation.php simply contains the HTML code for your menu.

Generally speaking, you can assume that the bots won't be seeing your navigation if it's in an iframe, so if you must do it this way, then make sure you include the navigation links as plain text in the footer of the page.
This way, the bots can follow the footer links, and having the iframe will not hurt you. However, iframe navigation is still a bad idea for other reasons, so the include idea is better.

 

from what i have heard on various forums, Frames are generally not SE friendly at all..

that doesnt mean you should never use them thought.

 

Yes. Do it with PHP.

I have one of my main sites, where I built it with iframes... and I lose tons of backlinks and more, cause they are on one page, not hundreds or thousands of different pages. All my newly made sites do the same thing with php. Still just one file to edit, but the seo benefits go to each page.

 

Great first post.

 

Frames suck unless you want to loose something to the SE's yet still show it on your page.

Includes such as PHP or SSI is what you want ... SE friendly.

 

An Iframe is counted as a new page so the text in the iframe wont count as on page text.

It wont hurt using an Iframe as I use them for some stuff but it depends what you use it for, dont put important stuff in one - I use mine for ads and stuff.

 

Thats what i use iframes for ads ...

 

You're ok then

 

Yes it will hurt your SEO since the search engines can't read what's inside the iframe!

 

I agree ... It wont hurt rest of the SEO work done on the site but the text in iframe cant be readable for bots.

 

Yes they do because search engines cannot actually read what the iframe contains so any information in the iframe tends to be left out be the crawlers.

 

Does naming the iframe help with the seo?
example: <iframe src="" name="" width="" height="" scrolling="" frameborder=""></iframe>

 

Using frames is not a good idea if you want search engine friendly site. You can use plain HTML or any other formats. Frames still have a problem in indexing with search engines.

 

thanks for your answer GuidoB but that's not making sense to me. How could Naming inside an iframe hurt SEO if Google can't read inside?
Why do I frames give the option of inputing a "src", "Title" or "Name" if Google can't read inside? (Actually I know that "Name" works as an anchore tag but what about src or Title?

 

I agree with this.. I have experienced using frames and I got problem with indexing my pages on Google.

 

A while back using iFrames were not a good idea as the search engines hadn't evolved to be able to crawl them well, although things have improved old habits are still recommended just to be safe