iframes problem

[birky]

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum so please forgive me if I ask a daft question. Here's the problem;

I am currently suing a guy for refusing to pay me for a web design I did for him. I stated clearly in the contract that I wanted to design the site as a standalone HTML. This is because his over-riding initial concern was to get the very best results in Google. My understanding of frames/Google was that frames of any description might risk any framed information not being indexed properly by Google.

He then, susequently, claimed I had given bad advice because I had not made provision for including iframes which, in turn, would have allowed the new site to display database content from a third party he was selling his products through.

Despite the fact that he was extending the parameters of our original contract, I did try to find a way of incorporating iframes such that Google would index the information inside the frames. However, at the time some months ago, I didn't see any way of doing that.

So...my question is...

Is it possible to use iframes and guarantee that the information inside them (about the products) would be indexed by Google? If so, I guess my case is lost. If not, I guess I win.

Any info would be most helpful.

Thanks

Birky

[jscheuer1]

There probably is a way. I don't know enough about Google's indexing methods to be able to say with certainty though. Something like this might work:

<iframe src="whatever.htm">
<a href="whatever.htm">whatever</a>
</iframe>

The link(s) (you can have as many as you like, one for each of the pages to be indexed that would otherwise only be seen and/or linked to within the iframe) will only be shown by browsers that do not support iframe, and also probably by spiders.

There are many other strategies for indexing pages that don't have a clear visible link on a page that will be indexed. Some research would be required to find a method that works. I would imagine that, using an external stylesheet to set a division's display property to none, and then including all of the 'orphan' links in there could also be quite effective.

But if you contracted with somebody for some work and did that work, you should be paid for that work. If you said that something couldn't be done, and later found out that it could be, or that it was wanted even if it wasn't optimal, and you then did that, you should charge extra for the extra work. If somebody else did the extra work, that's not your problem, except that you should still be paid for your original work, unless it isn't being used at all based solely upon your recommendation about the feasibility of iframe.

[BLiZZaRD]

Google does index iframes, although not always the content inside. If the content is the matter here, then the simple solution (as John was leading to above - me thinks) is to create a site map with links to every Iframe page.