# Google search, meta tags, and frame dilemma



## crcook84 (Aug 12, 2010)

I'm designing a business website. It's not going to be a fancy one. It'll just have basic frames and an index. I was researching how Google's SEO works and it, basically, said "we use the description meta tage, not the keyword meta tag". I've got no problem doing that. I'll admit I liked the idea of embeding keywords so that the search engine would pick up my website. However, I understand how the Google search engine works and I am willing to program the website to work accordingly. One thing that occurred to me though is what happens when Google searches through descriptions and it picks up a page that goes to an individual frame instead of the index file. The possibility is there in theory and I have experienced it in my Google searches.

One solution I had was to put a link in the page so that, if a user clicked it, it would default to the index page. However, if a user saw that when the frame was working normally and they clicked it, it might reproduce the entire website within that frame.

Another thought I had was to program that link to open up a new tab and the website would be reproduced that way. But, I thought that that might be a bit of a hassle for the user.

One other idea I just came up with (this is something that I think might be more trouble than it's worth) is to create copies for all my frames and put the link to the index file and the description meta tag on those pages. That way, if the user stumbles across the secondary page (due to the meta tag), all they have to do is click the index link and they'll be taken to the main website.


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## allnodcoms (Jun 30, 2007)

First off, are you using or ? Second, do you need a frame?

What tends to happen here is that if Google lists your page (by that I mean the one that appears _within_ the frame) they will provide a link to it, and that link will be to the target page itself, not the one that contains the frame. If all your navigation, for example, is outside of the frame it will not appear when Googlers click on your target page link.

Standard answer, assuming you want your page border (outside of the frame) to stay still and the content (inside the frame) to scroll, is to replace the frame with a and set the overflow in the CSS. You could then replicate a master page and change the content of the div on a page by page basis, or use AJAX to update the content on the fly.

Hope that throws some light on you dilemma.

Danny


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## crcook84 (Aug 12, 2010)

(Paragraph 1)
I've heard of . But, that wasn't part of the code that I'm using. I'm using . And I'm using it so as to make my website look more professional. After some research, though, sounds interesting. Shall I assume it's a next-gen version of and it would be smart to add it?

(Paragraph 2)
That's why I brought up this topic. If Google lists a page from my website instead of the website itself, it will direct people to just the page from the website. As such, they won't get any further information (like how to contact me). Can that be averted or even setting up a redirect to handle that kind of problem when it comes up?

(Paragraph 3)
I have no issues with scroll-ability within a . Actually, that was an issue when I was first creating the page. I've got that fixed now.


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## allnodcoms (Jun 30, 2007)

The tag is no longer supported in the latest version of HTML, it has been deprecated in favour of . If you need framed content then iframe is the way to go.

From what you've said I see no reason to do so though. There is no 'visual' difference between a frame and a div, so I'd lose the frame idea completely and just place your page specific content in a div...

Danny


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## crcook84 (Aug 12, 2010)

If you highly recommend going with div, then I'll go back. Although, I would like to make note of the other reason I suddenly remembered as to why I did frames. I thought it was a good idea as a way to cut down on making duplicate copies of the same page and hoping that the code wouldn't change as I made adjustments per what each page was supposed to say.


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## allnodcoms (Jun 30, 2007)

I would definitely recommend a based solution. As for the repetition of code thing, take a look at 99.999% of the sites out there - this one included. You could basically draw a box around the 'main bit' of content that changes per page, everything else stays the same from page to page. There's no harm in mate, knock up a template page that just has your constant (out of the frame) content on it, and a blank 'hole' or box where your page specific stuff goes. Cut and paste the content and "Save As...", then undo and move on. Sort your META out at the end...

Danny


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## crcook84 (Aug 12, 2010)

Ya, I can see what you mean. I've seen a lot of company websites that have the same layout on each page. I just never thought about whether they used div or frame. Frame was just easier to put together because the template was there. Fortunately, I have an earlier version of the website that still used the div tag. And, from the bit of tinkering I'm doing while writing this, it appears to be relatively easy to adjust the settings. One thing further I think I'll add to this: Instead of undoing the changes each time I make a new page, I could just create the template and then change it's file properties to read-only. That way, I could just pound it out one right after the other without fretting about messing up the template.


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## allnodcoms (Jun 30, 2007)

That works to... 

Danny


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

With reference to the user being able to get to the index page...


> all they have to do is click the index link and they'll be taken to the main website.


...you're probably not employing a menu on each page, but it's been my understanding that most website designers, automatically insert a link to the index(home) page in the website's header logo which, in general is found on every page in the header section (standard?) - check and you'll find that most sites do this and many users acknowledge this fact - if you did this it would nullify the need for a blatant homepage link and maintain the professionalism you are aiming for.
Something like this...

```
[B][SIZE=15][URL=index.html][CENTER][IMG]./images/Logo.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER][/URL][/SIZE][/B]
```


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## crcook84 (Aug 12, 2010)

JiminSA said:


> With reference to the user being able to get to the index page......you're probably not employing a menu on each page, but it's been my understanding that most website designers, automatically insert a link to the index(home) page in the website's header logo which, in general is found on every page in the header section (standard?) - check and you'll find that most sites do this and many users acknowledge this fact - if you did this it would nullify the need for a blatant homepage link and maintain the professionalism you are aiming for.
> Something like this...
> 
> ```
> ...


I was considering doing this in terms of creating dummy pages that contained the description tag and then placing a link at the bottom redirecting them to the index page, which would have contained the frames page. At the same time, inserting the robot tag into the original pages. That way: the duplicate pages that act as stand-alones would redirect to the main site, the original page wouldn't get crawled, and the frames page wouldn't create frames within frames or even leave the user with a page with no redirect link. But, I'm sticking with using the div tag. Now that I know it's what's more widely used, it's just a matter of getting back into it.


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## crcook84 (Aug 12, 2010)

touchwebdesignus said:


> In my opinion you have to use keyword meta tag which are effective then decription meta tag. Google robo crwal page and The indexer that sorts every word on every page and stores the resulting index of words in a huge database.


All right. I don't know where you got your information from. But, I have done quite a bit of research on the subject of what Google crawl uses and I have confirmation that Google doesn't use the keyword meta tag at all:




Here's what they do use:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=79812


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## allnodcoms (Jun 30, 2007)

Sorry for digging up a dead thread, but I've just seen the end of the conversation. While Google doesn't openly place any weight on a keyword (this week) that's no reason to omit them from your site. BigG may be the biggest on the planet, but it's not the only one, and they change their search algorithm more often than is absolutely necessary - so next week they may be critical to success.

You may not get marked up for having keywords, but you may well get marked down for _not_ having them...

Danny


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## crcook84 (Aug 12, 2010)

allnodcoms said:


> Sorry for digging up a dead thread, but I've just seen the end of the conversation. While Google doesn't openly place any weight on a keyword (this week) that's no reason to omit them from your site. BigG may be the biggest on the planet, but it's not the only one, and they change their search algorithm more often than is absolutely necessary - so next week they may be critical to success.
> 
> You may not get marked up for having keywords, but you may well get marked down for _not_ having them...
> 
> Danny


Thanks awfully. Actually, I, probably, wouldn't have made a big deal about it except that I found a thread at another site that said it would be good to take them down "eventually". I found it rather odd that a meta tag would be detrimental. But, I figured better safe than sorry.

But, after reading your post, it makes better sense to have an unused line of code that any search engine, regardless of their current algorithms, can use than to be caught off guard later on.


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## Ent (Apr 11, 2009)

Google's indexing algorithm is probably the most closely guarded secret in the world, and it does seem to change depending on which way the wind is blowing.

As I understand it, a search engine would prefer to use information, and especially links, from other sites for the purposes of *ranking* your site, or deciding where it should come in a results page. This is basically a form of community authority; the more people recommend something the more likely it is (apparently) to be good. They consider anything in your active control as less relevant, since you naturally have a vested interest in claiming to be good.

Search engines will use whatever information they can find to determine *what *your site is about and therefore which searches to bring it up in response to. However, wherever possible they'd prefer information as it's presented to human viewers, which is why Meta tags aren't as highly ranked as things like the contents of header tags or just the plain old blurb. That doesn't mean that Meta tags are inherently harmful, nor inherently useless.

That said, if a search engine believes that you're trying to cheat the system, they are well within their rights to demote or even remove your site from their lists. For example if you had a site about gardening but used meta tags such as "Make money fast" in a bid to attract traffic from common searches, they'd certainly see that as quite unacceptable and penalize you heavily for it.


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## crcook84 (Aug 12, 2010)

Well, now that that's covered, how 'bout some keyword advice. Obviously, search engines will count off points for "cheating". At the same time, if you're looking for a particular term, it's difficult to know how exactly you're supposed to type it in. For example, one of the services we provide is transferring U-matic tapes to DVD. Now, here is a sample of how many different variations I've come up with in terms of keywords and keyword phrases people might use:

 umatic
 u-matic
 
Now, obviously, if I do u-matic and umatic, that shouldn't count me off. Even having phrases that combine terms can be of benefit without marking me down. However, if I take into consideration phrase variations that include singular and plural variations, that dash can create a problem:

 umatic tape
 u-matic tape
 umatic tapes
 u-matic tapes

I think I can assume correctly that this variation in phrases is going to be detrimental. So, my question is are certain punctuation marks irrelevant? Or, if not irrelevant, not as important? Even better, can tape and tapes mean the same thing to a search engine? I believe I can assume that search engines are optimized. As such, it occurs to me that they should have a feature to reduce keyword redundancy.


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## Ent (Apr 11, 2009)

Again that would depend on exactly what code the engine uses, and that changes constantly. As I understand it hyphens are ignored in searches. Plurals aren't ignored, though I'm sure Google has some way of working from the root word. You're probably best off if you focus on the root word; (such as tape instead of tapes) though you'll doubtless rank for both.
You could always just pick a search engine and plug in some of the searches you're interested in. For example, the results for umatic and u-matic are exactly the same.


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## crcook84 (Aug 12, 2010)

I just did a search for google keyword plural and I found this:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/helping-computers-understand-language.html
I don't know why I didn't think of this before (then again, Google isn't very forthcoming that much). It definitely helps explain how Google's engine worked in the past. I imagine that, by now, they've refined their synonym system even further.

Here's an extra I found:
http://www.synonymlab.com/


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## caraewilton (Nov 7, 2007)

Here is my opinion on the matter. Never design a website for a computer, always design it for the people who are going to use it.

It is best if your site has html pages filled with good copy. In your case that would probably mean that you have a product page, and on this page you could explain what a u-matic tape is and how you are able convert the tape to dvd and why this is a good idea. This should be well written, useful to prospective clients and so on.

Also try have a blog type page where you can add new content weekly or bi-weekly for instance a tip of the week: best DVD storage policies, how to revive your old umatic tapes and so on. This way the search engines will find all those important key words. If there is frequent new content, they will start visiting your page regularly and all this will help you move up the ranking order. It takes time, even years, but it works, and each time google and other engines change their algorithms, you will not find that you are knocked off the search planet.

Further to this, give pages meaningful titles. Use h1, h2, h3 etc correctly to provide structure for your pages. Don't use depreciated tags like for bold text, rather use because if you play fair and have well written copy, the search engines will place more importance on the * words, thus helping you.

Also have a well structured file setup in terms of where you store your pages and how links are accessed. If you have similar files stored in a folder, over time google will recognise this and provide that information when people search and your site comes up.

Take the time to provide meaningful alt tags for your images. In the meta data, provide a clear, short summary for each page, in the description tag, as most search engines will use this as the short summary that comes up on the search pages. For keywords, choose no more than 10, each of which must appear on the actual page, even better if they are bold words. Don't worry about all the variations!

Also helpful, submit you business info with a link to your site, to things like the yellow pages, google maps and other business directories for the area where your business is.

Do not use frames or flash, as google and other search engines struggle to index such pages, but stick to html and css and for cosmetics, javascript. If you need the same heading and menus to appear across your site, rather use php to achieve this, then putting your pages into frames.

I realise, what I am suggesting offers no quick fixes to improving page rank or getting your site to the top of the list. But over time it works. Not to mention, you will actually also have a really worth while site. The actual content of your site is most important. Spend time on writing the pages up as this is what people will see and in turn the search engines will index.*


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## hassankhan (Jul 20, 2012)

Hi

If you use variations of keywords like u said on above umatic tape, u-matic tape,umatic tapes,u-matic tapes Now a Days it known as keyword Stuffing try to make sentence using one or two keywords in title and description tags plus the web Quality content Google will crawl your website indexing and search results .Any way avoid keyword stuffing thanks


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## Ent (Apr 11, 2009)

caraewilton said:


> Here is my opinion on the matter. Never design a website for a computer, always design it for the people who are going to use it.


The rest of that post was good, but this is an excellent piece of advice. 
Remember that even if you do get to the top of the search engine rankings, if people take one look at your site and walk off you have wasted your time. Meanwhile if you make something that builds up a reputation as being high quality, people (not computers) will be linking to your site from theirs.


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## crcook84 (Aug 12, 2010)

hassankhan said:


> Hi
> 
> If you use variations of keywords like u said on above umatic tape, u-matic tape,umatic tapes,u-matic tapes Now a Days it known as keyword Stuffing try to make sentence using one or two keywords in title and description tags plus the web Quality content Google will crawl your website indexing and search results .Any way avoid keyword stuffing thanks


No problem. If you examine this topic, I posted some links to information regarding how Google interprets keywords and synonyms. It's rather interesting. I've optimized it accordingly. Plus, one of the links directs to a website where you can type a keyword in and it'll give you information in regards to how Google interprets it.


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## hassankhan (Jul 20, 2012)

You are talking about Matt and Google Guys any way they are making stupid and they dont prefer SEO because they want each and every one to use adwords or pay to Google for advertising Some how Google dont have answers of many question but any way real practice is now Quality Website Content Little bit linking on good and informative website business listing, etc well i agreed on caraewilton reply and i wish you best of luck Dear


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## weiweigbasp (Jul 21, 2012)

If you highly recommend going with div, then I'll go back. Although, I would like to make note of the other reason I suddenly remembered as to why I did frames. I thought it was a good idea as a way to cut down on making duplicate copies of the same page and hoping that the code wouldn't change as I made adjustments per what each page was supposed to say.like this site:http://www.paranoid-schizophrenia-symptoms.net/


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## Ent (Apr 11, 2009)

Just a question, why have you created a new account?
Or is weiweigbasp not the thread starter?

In answer, frames are one way to avoid duplicate data (and therefore make it easier to update things across the site) but they're neither the only way nor the best way. Alternatives include using Server Side Includes to provide banners, menus, etc; or using PHP to create parts of the page.


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## crcook84 (Aug 12, 2010)

Ent said:


> Just a question, why have you created a new account?
> Or is weiweigbasp not the thread starter?


For clarification, *I* started this thread, I am not "weiweigbasp", and I don't have, and don't need, more than one account.


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## Ent (Apr 11, 2009)

I thought as much.


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