Halloween fright from designer :-(

[Zygoma]

Its traditional to get a fright on halloween but i got a big one today from an unexpected source, a web agency that has rolled out a web site to my company that breaks every SEO guidline in the book :-(

This is the offending site - http://pausetest.fastfreenet.com/

In the first week of my new job as the eCommerce manager I visted the web designer who has put together the site which needs to generate sales. Imagine my horror when i discovered they are about to roll out a site that has been built in frames and is invisible to search engines!!!

Euston we have a problem!!! My objective to get the site in a premium search engine position seams thwarted what can I do?

Just as I thought things couldnt get worse I suggested we could work around the invisibility of the site by ppc campaigns and eMail campaigns driving visitors to specific pages but then the designer says - "erm each page doesnt have a specific URL so i dont think you could do that"

What the hell!!! The site http://pausetest.fastfreenet.com/ looks like a black box, bots cant get into it, people searching for it wont see it some one call the web design cops.

Apart from ditching the designer and starting all over again does anyone have any suggestions how we could make this site visible to search engines?

Thanks in advance :-)

[sonjay]

Just take it out of the frameset, which is completely unnecessary. Turn http://pausetest.fastfreenet.com/home.jsp into the home page and go from there.

No linking to either home.jsp, though -- the "home" link should simply go to /

Also, turn all the javascript links into standard href links. No need for those, and they're also invisible to search engines.

There's a lot more that could be done -- but those 2 will hold off the death knell. The rest can be taken care of as you can get to it.

[Karin Sue]

I have no expertise in SEO but shouldn't there at least be meta tags for keywords and description?

[sonjay]

Certainly there should, at least a description meta tag. But until the site's taken out of the frameset it really doesn't matter. That's the first issue that needs to be tackled. (Well, that plus the javascript navigation links.)

[johnyboy]

> Euston we have a problem!!!

houston, you mean.

> Also, turn all the javascript links into standard href links. No need for those, and they're also invisible to search engines.

why on earth would someone use js to do links as opposed to normal html? forget search engines, what about people (who don't have js on)?

a "web agency" ? which company? in the uk i presume?

it's not just search engines that's going to have problems but people. i put people in front of, in importance, search engines myself.

[Zygoma]

Just take it out of the frameset, which is completely unnecessary. Turn http://pausetest.fastfreenet.com/home.jsp into the home page and go from there.

No linking to either home.jsp, though -- the "home" link should simply go to /

Also, turn all the javascript links into standard href links. No need for those, and they're also invisible to search engines.

There's a lot more that could be done -- but those 2 will hold off the death knell. The rest can be taken care of as you can get to it.

Thank You Sonjay :-)

It was a total shock to me last friday when I was introduced to what I'd be working with.

Ive been employed by the company as the eCommerce manager and was told the site would meet the basics but it doesnt. One week into the job and to discover the sites been built in frames and thanks to your insights the links are not standard href links is another revelation.

I'm very keen to get http://pausetest.fastfreenet.com/ open to search engines and whilst i realise theres lots to do to get it there would I be right in telling the developers they have to do the following:

1. get rid of the framesets
2. change the links to HREF's

With the below advice Sonjay -
"Turn http://pausetest.fastfreenet.com/home.jsp into the home page and go from there."

Is this a big job. I mean I have built basic websites and if you do get the chance to reply to this message your additional advice wouls be greatly appreciated :-)

Just a side thought makes me wonder why do people use framesets?

Thanks in advance Sonjay :-)

[sonjay]

Thank You Sonjay :-)
would I be right in telling the developers they have to do the following:

1. get rid of the framesets
2. change the links to HREF's

Yes, I would say those two are absolute "must-do" items. I wouldn't even consider launching the site until those 2 are taken care of.

I can't begin to imagine why the frameset was used. The index.html page is a frameset with two frames: one that displays home.jsp, and one that calls "hidden.html" -- hidden.html contains nothing and that frame has a width and height of 0.

I can see no purpose whatsoever for such a setup. Unless it's something weird having to do with the subdomain on the fastfreenet.com parent domain. What's the purpose for that, BTW? Will this site have its own domain? If they're simply staging the site here, it's possible there's some reason for using the frames during staging but they're not planning to use the frames on the real site.

Fortunately, in this case, taking it out of the frameset is no big deal. Simply make "home.jsp" the default home page (instead of index.html), and change all the links to index.html to link to "/".

Go ahead and load up the site at http://pausetest.fastfreenet.com/home.jsp, and then click around to various pages -- you'll see that all the individual pages have their own URL in the address bar. So, by simply starting at home.jsp instead of index.html, your frameset problem is magically fixed.

And definitely get those javascript links turned into real href links.

I would personally use URL rewriting to make those URLs more user-friendly and search-engine-friendly -- instead of "catalogue.jsp?request=category_operation&current=565" for example, I might make that link something like "beverage-equipment.html" or just "beverage-equipment". Although Google recently stated (on their blog, I think) that dynamic URLs like that are fine and rewriting isn't needed. So that's something you'll have to make your own decision about.

I'd also be concerned about the number of validation errors in both the html and css, and the use of an XHTML doctype with documents that aren't even valid HTML Transitional.

You've definitely got your work cut out for you, getting this thing whipped into shape. The good news is, any web developer who knows what they're doing shouldn't have any trouble fixing things up.

[Zygoma]

Yes, I would say those two are absolute "must-do" items. I wouldn't even consider launching the site until those 2 are taken care of.

I can't begin to imagine why the frameset was used. The index.html page is a frameset with two frames: one that displays home.jsp, and one that calls "hidden.html" -- hidden.html contains nothing and that frame has a width and height of 0.

I can see no purpose whatsoever for such a setup. Unless it's something weird having to do with the subdomain on the fastfreenet.com parent domain. What's the purpose for that, BTW? Will this site have its own domain? If they're simply staging the site here, it's possible there's some reason for using the frames during staging but they're not planning to use the frames on the real site.

Fortunately, in this case, taking it out of the frameset is no big deal. Simply make "home.jsp" the default home page (instead of index.html), and change all the links to index.html to link to "/".

Go ahead and load up the site at http://pausetest.fastfreenet.com/home.jsp, and then click around to various pages -- you'll see that all the individual pages have their own URL in the address bar. So, by simply starting at home.jsp instead of index.html, your frameset problem is magically fixed.

And definitely get those javascript links turned into real href links.

I would personally use URL rewriting to make those URLs more user-friendly and search-engine-friendly -- instead of "catalogue.jsp?request=category_operation&current=565" for example, I might make that link something like "beverage-equipment.html" or just "beverage-equipment". Although Google recently stated (on their blog, I think) that dynamic URLs like that are fine and rewriting isn't needed. So that's something you'll have to make your own decision about.

I'd also be concerned about the number of validation errors in both the html and css, and the use of an XHTML doctype with documents that aren't even valid HTML Transitional.

You've definitely got your work cut out for you, getting this thing whipped into shape. The good news is, any web developer who knows what they're doing shouldn't have any trouble fixing things up.

Thank you Sonjay :-)

[Zygoma]

Hi Sonjay -

One last question (promise). You observed the following -
I can't begin to imagine why the frameset was used. The index.html page is a frameset with two frames: one that displays home.jsp, and one that calls "hidden.html" -- hidden.html contains nothing and that frame has a width and height of 0.

My question is...How can you tell there is a "hidden.html"? Thanks :-)

[spikeZ]

OK, well its not that bad..... honest.

To quickly answer your last question, view the source of the page from the menu at the top of the browser NOT by right click and you get:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd">
<html><head><meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache"><meta http-equiv="Expires" content="-1"><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"><title>pause... thoughtful refreshment</title><script src="js/QVS_II.src" type="text/javascript"></script></head><frameset rows="100&#37;,*"><frame name="topFrame" src="home.jsp" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" frameborder="0" noresize scrolling="yes"><frame src="hidden.html" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" frameborder="0" noresize><noframes><body>Please enable frames to view this site</body></noframes></frameset></html>

eeeuuggh. In there are the 2 pages served by the frameset.

[spikeZ]

> Euston we have a problem!!!

houston, you mean.

I think it was a pun

Having looked more into the site I can safely say - I dont want their number

You do have your work cut out but as Sonja said, making the home.jsp the default page should be ok.

Ring them up and ask them to explain the use of frames here, I would love to know their reasoning!

[sonjay]

I too would love to know the reasoning for the frames. Most of the time, reasons for using frames are bad ones, but I can't see any reason for these particular frames.

[Zygoma]

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN

Could someone let me know the latest standard doctype that should be used please :-)

[johnyboy]

> I think it was a pun

oh right, i don't get it then! :/ does the website have something to do with euston? doesn't matter at all though.

> Having looked more into the site I can safely say - I dont want their number

yup, that was also my feeling -- obviously i was asking in a negative way; given that they're a "web agency", and doing that kind of thing, well, seems... i don't know what but not good. making basic links only work for js people really is unacceptable imo. seems worse than frames to me. anyway, frames, js for links, who knows what else, they're a web agency. doesn't look good for them :/

[spikeZ]

The DOCTYPE is fine Z, its the rest of it

Johnyboy, I totally agree and that wasn't aimed in any way towards what you said. Sorry if you thought it was.

[sonjay]

The DOCTYPE is fine Z, its the rest of it

I'm not sure I agree with that.

First, I question the wisdom of using an XHTML doctype at all -- for the various reasons discussed in this thread.

Second, the doctype used should be consistent with the style of code used, which is dependent on the ability of the person or team doing the coding to code to a particular standard. I suspect that HTML Strict might be beyond the abilities of the particular company in question. I would guess that an HTML Transitional doctype might be most appropriate for this site; it's definitely the appropriate Doctype for the site as it currently exists. There will be a lot more work to do than we've discussed here to bring the code into conformity with HTML Strict. I doubt that XHTML should even be considered.

HTML Transitional Doctype:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

[johnyboy]

> Johnyboy, I totally agree and that wasn't aimed in any way towards what you said. Sorry if you thought it was.

no, no, i was just clarifying/continuing why i was asking who the agency was. i didn't think what you said was aimed at what i said at all.

thanks.