There was a time when the main navigation of the page of a website did not scroll down when the rest of the page was scrolled. The system of locking frames to one part of the page is rarely seen in web design these days. The Iframe or Inline frame is the only type of frame that can be used to design a website with HTML5. However, many web designers and SEO experts may recommend not using Iframes while designing a site. There is only one way of knowing if this recommendation is valid or not that is by understanding what Iframes do, what they are used for and how they can be used, if used at all.
You can include external content into your page by using Iframes. For instance, if your site served advertisements from an advertising site, those ads would be considered as external content. They would not qualify as editorial content. Using Iframes to serve content from another site on your page is similar to having two browsers open on the same page. It would be like having two windows on the same page the primary window and a secondary window. The primary window will show the editorial content of your site and the secondary window will show the external content.
Search engines will only crawl the editorial content of your page and ignore any of the external content that is served using Iframes. Hence, the advertisements will not be mistaken to be the content of your pages. The value of your site content will also not be reduced by these ads.
The use of Iframes has become lesser and lesser over the years because of the development of new technologies like JavaScript, AJAX and Styles. Many times, Iframes are abused by malicious sites that use them to hide any malicious content. This has caused many security issues. Most SEO experts believe that Iframes are not SEO friendly because the content served by them cannot be crawled by search engines. Hence, many people feel that Iframes should not at all be used while designing sites. However, this is not true in all the cases. If Iframes were not SEO friendly, sites like Gmail, Twitter or FaceBook would not have used them.
When should you use Iframes?
The use of Iframes may be justified because of the following three reasons:
Iframes use a cross domain origin policy. Hence, it will be easy and safe for you to extract content from other sites.
You will have many more options about the kind of content you can serve on your site if you use Iframes. For example, you will be able to display the content from a PDF file within your web page if you use Iframe.
Many times you may not want search engines to index or crawl a particular page or part of content on your site deliberately. Using an Iframe will make it easy for you to block that page or content from the search engines. For example, if you did not want the search engines to access a subscription form or plug-in, you can block it easily using Iframe.
Unlike what many people believe, Iframes can play a vital role in website design even today and are being used by many web design service providers to design their sites. However, one should be careful to use them correctly. If used correctly, an Iframe can make it very easy to serve external content on your site and prevent search engines from crawling it.
You can include external content into your page by using Iframes. For instance, if your site served advertisements from an advertising site, those ads would be considered as external content. They would not qualify as editorial content. Using Iframes to serve content from another site on your page is similar to having two browsers open on the same page. It would be like having two windows on the same page the primary window and a secondary window. The primary window will show the editorial content of your site and the secondary window will show the external content.
Search engines will only crawl the editorial content of your page and ignore any of the external content that is served using Iframes. Hence, the advertisements will not be mistaken to be the content of your pages. The value of your site content will also not be reduced by these ads.
The use of Iframes has become lesser and lesser over the years because of the development of new technologies like JavaScript, AJAX and Styles. Many times, Iframes are abused by malicious sites that use them to hide any malicious content. This has caused many security issues. Most SEO experts believe that Iframes are not SEO friendly because the content served by them cannot be crawled by search engines. Hence, many people feel that Iframes should not at all be used while designing sites. However, this is not true in all the cases. If Iframes were not SEO friendly, sites like Gmail, Twitter or FaceBook would not have used them.
When should you use Iframes?
The use of Iframes may be justified because of the following three reasons:
Iframes use a cross domain origin policy. Hence, it will be easy and safe for you to extract content from other sites.
You will have many more options about the kind of content you can serve on your site if you use Iframes. For example, you will be able to display the content from a PDF file within your web page if you use Iframe.
Many times you may not want search engines to index or crawl a particular page or part of content on your site deliberately. Using an Iframe will make it easy for you to block that page or content from the search engines. For example, if you did not want the search engines to access a subscription form or plug-in, you can block it easily using Iframe.
Unlike what many people believe, Iframes can play a vital role in website design even today and are being used by many web design service providers to design their sites. However, one should be careful to use them correctly. If used correctly, an Iframe can make it very easy to serve external content on your site and prevent search engines from crawling it.
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