Are Google now indexing iFrames?
-
A client is pulling content through an iFrame, and when searching for a snippet of that exact content the page that is pulling the data is being indexed and not the iFrame page. Seen this before?
-
Yeah, I use iframes and if I want to be sure they are NOT indexed, I Just add a "noindex" tag. You may also want to add a "nofollow" tag to avoid spiders to follow links inside the frame. Using iframes may be a good idea to reduce the number of links on a page (Bruce Clay suggestion).
-
I've never seen it before, but like everyone here said, it's not a good idea.
This makes me wonder though:
1. Can you find the original page using a snippet? And if not:
2. Is the page contained in the iframe indexed? (Or better-phrased, is the page that is being framed "noindex"?)
It makes sense to me that if the framed page is noindex, that Google would index the content and attribute it to the page framing it.
One perfect example:
I embed videos using an iframe and then I make the video unlisted in YouTube. My embedded content is indexed and even displayed as a rich snippet....
-
I have noticed content within iFrames being indexed by google and text within those iFrames being attributed to the page/url that is hosting the iFrame. Not sure how often this applies. I avoid iFrames.
Merchant Circle uses them and their pages get credit for content in them.
-
It might have been covered but it does seem that google is ignoring iframes in relation to commets code posted on sites.for instance: our text cached version.: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8IZ95GICp7AJ:gaveltek.com/seoblog/&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1
compare the page title to (use headers it easier)
www.gaveltek.com/seoblog the list "comments" and despite there being some the are not posted. However, I do believe general wordpress comments hold some weight. That is not to sayt that facebook comments do not, its just done via different metrics, like social, and trust, and egngagement.
Cheers
TODD
-
A good way to check is go to google.com and type in your full URL like this:
site:www.domain.com
Then you will be populated with your sites pages of course. Now there is a link there that says: "cache" and you can see what it cached.
I think they may be getting better at knowing what's in a iframe. Look at how many sites use facebook comments on the blog and how do you think thats ran? iframes. Do you remember google and adobe working together at reading .pdf's and flash.
The little magnifying glass has some cool technology behind it that I'm sure helped them know whats really on the site. Without getting to far off track I do feel like they are better at reading iframes. Just my .02c in this thread.
-
last thought... i've only ever used iframes in the aforementioned example. Not an ideal way to display your original content if you want it indexed.
-
It is very typical for Google to ignore iframes. I don't know the precise details of your situation but there are several reasons for iframing that might make sense - this is situational - so no hating!
-
you're an affiliate and using another offer (conversion form) that you have to iframe to generate leads, etc
-
you want to hide duplicate content that appears elsewhere on the site (although there are far more elegant ways to do this)
3)You're pulling video or other syndicated content from a publisher who wants to maintain control (ie not let you outrank them with their own content)
*** Remember that the iframed content can certainly be indexed but usually only from the destination URL's originating source. For example: You are www.insuranceaffilifate.com running an offer from www.insurance.com/form_1011 - you will most likely use insurance.com's form via iframe on your landing page. That form, unless it uses a NOINDEX meta tag, will likely be picked by the search engines from www.insurance.com but will be ignored on your site www.insuranceaffiliate.com.
Hope this helps.
-
-
I have to agree with Julich in that you should move the content to be truly located on www.domain.com instead of iframe.domain.com.
-
I totally agree that they shouldn't be using iFrames and it is part of my recommendations to them, but we need to work with what we have at the moment.
So just to clarify, you would say that www.domain.com which is pulling the data through from iframe.domain.com would rank?
Even though all the content except the navigation, footer, etc is on iframe.domain.com.
-
Normally, it would be www.domain.com (unless it doesn't provide any content outside the iFrame).
But it is not abnormal to also see iframe.domain.com in the SERPS, since it may have some backlinks pointing to it.
Anyway, using iframes is a weird technique and I recommend you merge those into www.domain.com if possible (and don't forget to do some 301 redirections to tell Google your pages have definitely moved to www.domain.com).
-
OK, so if www.domain.com was pulling through content from iframe.domain.com which domain would you expect to rank?
I would personally expect iframe.domain.com to rank as that is actually where the content is and the www.domain.com provides the link to that page. I am currently seeing both domains rank, which has lead me to ask the question.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do URLs with canonical tags get indexed by Google?
Hi, we re-branded and launched a new website in February 2016. In June we saw a steep drop in the number of URLs indexed, and there have continued to be smaller dips since. We started an account with Moz and found several thousand high priority crawl errors for duplicate pages and have since fixed those with canonical tags. However, we are still seeing the number of URLs indexed drop. Do URLs with canonical tags get indexed by Google? I can't seem to find a definitive answer on this. A good portion of our URLs have canonical tags because they are just events with different dates, but otherwise the content of the page is the same.
Technical SEO | | zasite0 -
How can I tell Google not to index a portion of a webpage?
I'm working with an ecommerce site that has many product descriptions for various brands that are important to have but are all straight duplicates. I'm looking for some type of tag tht can be implemented to prevent Google from seeing these as duplicates while still allowing the page to rank in the index. I thought I had found it with Googleoff, googleon tag but it appears that this is only used with the google appliance hardware.
Technical SEO | | bradwayland0 -
Why are my images not being indexed?
I have submitted an image sitemap with over 2,000 images yet only about 35 have been indexed. Could you please help me understand why Google is not indexing my images? www.creative-calendars.com
Technical SEO | | nicole20140 -
Should I remove these pages from the Google index?
Hi there, Please have a look at the following URL http://www.elefant-tours.com/index.php?callback=imagerotator&gid=65&483. It's a "sitemap" generated by a Wordpress plug-in called NextGen gallery and it maps all the images that have been added to the site through this plugin, which is quite a lot in this case. I can see that these "sitemap" pages have been indexed by Google and I'm wondering whether I should remove these or not? In my opinion these are pages that a search engine would never would want to serve as a search result and pages that a visitor never would want to see. Attracting any traffic through Google images is irrelevant in this case. What is your advice? Block it or leave it indexed or something else?
Technical SEO | | Robbern0 -
Google Published Date - Does Google Lie?
Here's the scenario. I create a page called "ABC" and it gets published and found by Google lets say on the 13th of April. on the 15th (or 14th) i decide to update the URL, page Title, and content. (Redirect old URL to new URL as well) Will Google still show this page as being published on the 13th? or would it update the publish date according to the new URL? Greg | | | | | | <a id="question_reply-to-question-36769-description_codeblock" class="mceButton mceButtonEnabled mce_codeblock" style="color: #000000; border: 1px solid #f0f0ee; margin: 0px 1px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: transparent; cursor: default; vertical-align: baseline; width: 20px; border-collapse: separate; display: block; height: 20px;" title="Create Code Block" tabindex="-1"></a>Create Code Block | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Technical SEO | | AndreVanKets0 -
Index page
To the SEO experts, this may well seem a silly question, so I apologies in advance as I try not to ask questions that I probably know the answer for already, but clarity is my goal I have numerous sites ,as standard practice, through the .htaccess I will always set up non www to www, and redirect the index page to www.mysite.com. All straight forward, have never questioned this practice, always been advised its the ebst practice to avoid duplicate content. Now, today, I was looking at a CMS service for a customer for their website, the website is already built and its a static website, so the CMS integration was going to mean a full rewrite of the website. Speaking to a friend on another forum, he told me about a service called simple CMS, had a look, looks perfect for the customer ... Went to set it up on the clients site and here is the problem. For the CMS software to work, it MUST access the index page, because my index page is redirected to www.mysite.com , it wont work as it cant find the index page (obviously) I questioned this with the software company, they inform me that it must access the index page, I have explained that it wont be able to and why (cause I have my index page redirected to avoid duplicate content) To my astonishment, the person there told me that duplicate content is a huge no no with Google (that's not the astonishing part) but its not relevant to the index and non index page of a website. This goes against everything I thought I knew ... The person also reassured me that they have worked within the SEO area for 10 years. As I am a subscriber to SEO MOZ and no one here has anything to gain but offering advice, is this true ? Will it not be an issue for duplicate content to show both a index page and non index page ?, will search engines not view this as duplicate content ? Or is this SEO expert talking bull, which I suspect, but cannot be sure. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, it would make my life a lot easier for the customer to use this CMS software, but I would do it at the risk of tarnishing the work they and I have done on their ranking status Many thanks in advance John
Technical SEO | | Johnny4B0 -
How do you know what version of your site of Google is in their index?
This is going to sound like a strange question, but I am trying to understand which version of our site is in the index. You might think this is an obvious question, but here is why I am asking: 1. Today I searched for a specific keyword and found the listing. 2. I liked on the right arrow next to the listing and checked the cache date. It says 6/28 and shows the site as of 6/28. 3. I expected to see that we were just indexed as we jumped several pages since yesterday and I had just checked two days ago and we hadn't moved at all. It seems like Google may have taken the changes we made on 7/2 but since it is showing 6/28, I am note sure. Since this is confusing, here is the chronology: 1. Made changes 6/20. 2. Site appeared to be indexed on 6/28. 3. Made changes on 7/2. 4. Checked the site on 7/2 and we were in position 60. Checked the site on 7/4 and we were in position 61. 5.. Checked the site today (7/6) and see we are in position 8. The cache date shows as 6/28. I suspect that Google just indexed us yesterday and is reflecting the changes I made on 7/2. But the fact that it says it was cached on 6/28 seems to sugges otherwise. I want to be sure I know which version got us the good rankings - is there any way to be sure? Thanks!!
Technical SEO | | trophycentraltrophiesandawards0 -
Google indexing thousands crazy search results with %25253
In GWT I started seeing very strange pages indexed a few weeks, and Google is no reporting over 21,000 of pages (blocked by robots.txt) with weird URLs like this: http://www.francesphotography.com/?s=no-results:no-results%25252525252525253Ano-results%2525252525252525253Ano-results%252525252525252525253Ano-results%252525252525252525253Ano-results%252525252525252525253Ano-results%252525252525252525253Ano-results%25252525252525252525253Ano-results%25252525252525252525253Ano-results%2525252525252525252525253Adanna&cat=no-results http://www.francesphotography.com/?s=no-results:no-results%2525253Ano-results%25252525253Ano-results%25252525253Ano-results%25252525253Ano-results%2525252525253Ano-results%25252525252525253Ano-results%25252525252525253Ano-results%25252525252525253Adanna&cat=no-results The current robots.txt looks like this: User-agent: *
Technical SEO | | BoulderJoe
Disallow: /wp-content Disallow: /wp-admin Disallow: /wp-includes
Disallow: /data
Disallow: /slideshows
Disallow: /page/*/?s=
Disallow: /?s=
Disallow: /search This website is running an up to date WP install with Yoast's Google Analytics and SEO plug-in. I can't point to anything specific that happened with the site when these URLs started appearing even after I modified the robots.txt. What can be done to try and stop Google from creating and indexing these goofy URLs? I see lots of sites having this issue when I search in Google, but no one seems to have a solution.0