Hi, I'm a marketing adviser new to web design and I'm looking for some clarification on an issue a client has. They asked me to look at their web site coding and i noticed a strange layout, similar to below (edited page title and web site address to protect the guilty party: Can someone please give a succinct reason why the above layout results in poor search engine rankings - i know it does but my limited technical understanding doesn’t allow me to frame (no pun intended) an answer. Thanks in advance.
It is a framed site. Thier is no actual site it is just showing another site in that page. No meta tags or content so search engines do not like it.
Don't use frames! I won't go into the long, complicated deals, but using frames is not only a crappy user experience, but it makes SEO almost worthless. Read this link: http://www.seologic.com/faq/frames-html-links.php That site needs a complete redesign.
Search engines pretty much look at the CODE, not the actually browser display of a site. If you are using frames, what the SE sees is pretty much what you posted there. Because you want content that Google and other search engines can read and understand, content with your keywords featured and optimised, frames are really bad for SEO. Basically Google can't actually read the content that your users see. Plus, frames are annoying for users, in general, and should be avoided. Good CSS can keep your code consise and readable by Google while still looking awesome for your clients/visitors.
Thanks for all your advice. Until I can get myself up a to a reasonable level of competency with web design, i think its time to draft in a new web developer. Its a shame as the actual site is very well laid out and proffesional looking in its design and branding. Apparently it was a very competent web design firm they used... Thanks again.