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
-
Google not Indexing images on CDN.
My URL is: https://bit.ly/2hWAApQ We have set up a CDN on our own domain: https://bit.ly/2KspW3C We have a main xml sitemap: https://bit.ly/2rd2jEb and https://bit.ly/2JMu7GB is one the sub sitemaps with images listed within. The image sitemap uses the CDN URLs. We verified the CDN subdomain in GWT. The robots.txt does not restrict any of the photos: https://bit.ly/2FAWJjk. Yet, GWT still reports none of our images on the CDN are indexed. I ve followed all the steps and still none of the images are being indexed. My problem seems similar to this ticket https://bit.ly/2FzUnBl but however different because we don't have a separate image sitemap but instead have listed image urls within the sitemaps itself. Can anyone help please? I will promptly respond to any queries. Thanks
Technical SEO | | TNZ
Deepinder0 -
Why would Google not index all submitted pages?
On Google Search console we see that many of our submitted pages weren't indexed. What could be the reasons? | Web pages |
Technical SEO | | Leagoldberger
| 130,030 Submitted |
| 87,462 Indexed |0 -
How can I get a photo album indexed by Google?
We have a lot of photos on our website. Unfortunately most of them don't seem to be indexed by Google. We run a party website. One of the things we do, is take pictures at events and put them on the site. An event page with a photo album, can have anywhere between 100 and 750 photo's. For each foto's there is a thumbnail on the page. The thumbnails are lazy loaded by showing a placeholder and loading the picture right before it comes onscreen. There is no pagination of infinite scrolling. Thumbnails don't have an alt text. Each thumbnail links to a picture page. This page only shows the base HTML structure (menu, etc), the image and a close button. The image has a src attribute with full size image, a srcset with several sizes for responsive design and an alt text. There is no real textual content on an image page. (Note that when a user clicks on the thumbnail, the large image is loaded using JavaScript and we mimic the page change. I think it doesn't matter, but am unsure.) I'd like that full size images should be indexed by Google and found with Google image search. Thumbnails should not be indexed (or ignored). Unfortunately most pictures aren't found or their thumbnail is shown. Moz is giving telling me that all the picture pages are duplicate content (19,521 issues), as they are all the same with the exception of the image. The page title isn't the same but similar for all images of an album. Example: On the "A day at the park" event page, we have 136 pictures. A site search on "a day at the park" foto, only reveals two photo's of the albums. 3QolbbI.png QTQVxqY.jpg mwEG90S.jpg
Technical SEO | | jasny0 -
Google indexing despite robots.txt block
Hi This subdomain has about 4'000 URLs indexed in Google, although it's blocked via robots.txt: https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=site%3Awww1.swisscom.ch&oq=site%3Awww1.swisscom.ch This has been the case for almost a year now, and it does not look like Google tends to respect the blocking in http://www1.swisscom.ch/robots.txt Any clues why this is or what I could do to resolve it? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | zeepartner0 -
What to do if my site was De-indexed?
Hello fellow SEOs, I have been doing SEO for about a year now, I'm not expert, but I know enough to get the job done. I'm learning everyday about better techniques. So enough about that... Tonight I noticed that my site has, I believe, been de-indexed. Its a fairly new site, as we just launched it a few days ago and I went in and did all the title tags and meta. I still have to go in to do the h1 and h2 tags...plus add some alt tags and anchor text. Well anyways, after a couple of days after the title tags were implemented. I was propagating all over the place. Using my keyword tool here...I was number on the first page in Google for 71 or the 88 keywords. My new site was just indexed yesterday and thats when i noticed all my keywords. Well today I noticed that I am no where to be found, even if i type in my company's name. PLEASE help me out...any advice would be appreciated. Thank you. p.s. could my competitors could have done something to my site? just wondering... The website is www.eggheadconsultants.com
Technical SEO | | Jegghead1 -
Getting querystring indexed?
Hi everybody! I work with tags a lot on my photo blog but I haven't gotten Google to index one tag so far. Any tips on how to do this? Thanks / Niklas
Technical SEO | | KAN-Malmo0 -
Google is indexing proxy (mirror) site.
We moved the site to a new hosting. Previously the site used Godaddy Windows Hosting with white domain masking. After moving the site we just mirrored the site. We have to use mirrored domain for PPC campaigns because it mirrored site contains true BRAND name and there is better conversion with that domain plus all trade marked keywords are approved for mirrored domain. Robots.txt User-agent: * Host: www.hermitagejewelers.com Disallow: /Bin Disallow: /css www.hermitagejewelers.com is the main domain. Mirror site is www.ermitagejewelers.com (Without the "H" at the beginning) Most of the keywords are now picked up by mirror site. I have not noticed any major changes in ranking except that it ranks for mirror site. We updated the sitemap. Website is designed very poorly (not by us). Also, we submitted the change address request for ermitagejewelers to hermitagejewelers in webmasters. Please let me know any advice to fix that problem. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | MaxRuso1