3.7 HTML Frames

Using frames is an HTML technique that divides the browser window into two or more rectangular regions. You might see a table of contents on the left side of the screen and the content on the right. Each frame displays a separate HTML document. But that is good for theory, but not at all recommended for practical purposes. Using frames creates problem of different kinds, let us discuss how.

The World Wide Web has got a huge acceptance and success because of the simplicity of the concept. One URL refers to one and only one page. With frames, this feature is lost. A frames-based page has its own URL, but the page itself rarely contains any content. Rather, it contains links to other Web pages that contain the actual content; it is these pages that are displayed in the frames. So, the situation has changed: a URL no longer points to a page of content but rather points to a frames page, which then points to the actual content. This leads to break up in fundamental structure of the Web.

Frames are also not considered browser friendly, and its compatibility varies with different browsers. The final problem with frames that it is to be mentioned is search engines such as Bing, Yahoo and Google. The break in the structure mentioned earlier can be fatal to a search engine trying to index your page. While some search engines do deep scan through a frames page to the content, but you can take risk on that. Search engines play the important role in locating Web content and drawing visitors to your site.

With advanced Web authoring techniques, some of the disadvantages of the frames can be overcome. But, for someone just getting started with Web design, frames should not be used. Frames are created using the <frameset> and <frame> tags. This will help you to recognize them when you see them in the source code for someone else’s Web page. Frames will not be covered further in this tutorial..