iframes

[vangogh]

David the rewrite rule you posted is exactly what I was referring to with the single line of redirection. That would take care of everything with search engines as it does with real people typing the url or following links to the .html pages.

The code Bill typed and I typed above will let basically let .html files act like .php files so you can run php, but keep the .html extension.

Maybe you won't see a dip if you change things. It could depend on a number of things. It's something to be prepared for, but maybe won't happen. What you could do if you're nervous is convert a few pages at a time. Start building the php template and only use it on a handful of pages and see what happens. Start with the pages that don't get as much traffic and go from there. There's no reason you have to do everything all at once.

[Business Attorney]

The solution you and Bill proposed seems perfect. Is there any drawback?

[billbenson]

Didn't see that VG had already posted that.. Remember that G never sees server side code. It can just be html or php generating html which is what wordpress does for example. As long as you aren't changing anything that goes to the browser G has no way of knowing how the html sent to the browser was produced. So that code will allow you to keep the same page name and the search engines will not see any change (other than changes in page copy etc). So no, I can't think of any negatives.

[vangogh]

I don't think there's any drawback. Like Bill said search engines don't see the server side code. Your php is parsed before it ever reaches a browser so no one including search engines sees the php. From everyone's perspective your page will simply be like any other .html page.

[Business Attorney]

Thank you both. That was very helpful.

[vangogh]

Glad we could help. You know where to come if you have more questions.

[Spider]

I'm rather surprised that iframes are still around - I first came across iframes it seems like 10 or 12 years ago. I think it was exclusive to IE in the beginning. I rather presumed it was what people are calling non-compliant code. So, iframes now work on all browsers and are not considered "old" and "dated" code? That's good.

Has anyone any idea about the speed of iframes compared to graphics? I mean, if I have content in a graphic and if I have that same content in an iframe, which would download faster into a webpage?

[vangogh]

iframes have been part of html for a long time. I think they were introduced by IE, but all browsers have been using them for as long as I can remember. They've been part of the html specification since html 4.01 I think.

I wouldn't say iframes are old and outdated. It's more a case of whether or not they're used well. iframes make sense when you need to load one web page inside your another. For example Facebook uses iframe code to let people embed many of the widgets you see on other sites.

You wouldn't use an iframe to load an image directly. iframes are means to load one document inside another so you'd be building an html page just to house an image and then call that document inside the iframe. That would ultimately be 2 http requests. One for the document inside the iframe and then one for the image that document has to call.

Chances are if you can accomplish the same thing without an iframe you're probably better off. I realize that's a pretty general statement. Take this whole thread though. What David wants to accomplish is done much better using a server side language like php. His use of iframes was because his pages as they existed couldn't run php. However the better solution to what he wanted to do was still to use php (or other server side language).

For most things iframes probably have more cons than pros, but they can be the solution to some problems.

[billbenson]

Iframes are placing a web page inside of your web page. Similar to an RSS feed in a way. If you want to put Amazon or ebay products on your web site I believe they give you an iframe link to their site. Harold would know more about how that works. You could also have say a table that is on your site and insert it into one of your web pages. Its an easy way for companies like Amazon to put their information on your website. They just tell you to use this one line of code and its there. Remember, everyone that has Amazon products on their pages isn't a web designer or programmer so its kind of idiot proof. The same sort of thing can be done with a line of JavaScript by the way.

Its probably possible to use php to convert an iframe to actual html on your site. I'd have to give some thought as to how to do that though. If I were to use iframes I'd look into this as it would help SEO and not really be duplicate content.

[Spider]

If I remember correctly, Netscape did not support iframes. I found iframes quite useful for a whle, although I haven't used one for quite some time.

Also, I wasn't considering putting an image on a separate page and calling that page inside an iframe - that would obviously be slower. I was thinking of putting some text on a separate page and calling it in an iframe, compared with putting that same text on an image and calling that directly into the main page. which would be faster?

Amzon still support the old, pre-iframes ads. Amazon ads in iframes are a fairly recent addition. I don't like the iframe ads, actually, because you can't modify them. Using the direct html link allows the site owner to complile the ad to suit themselves. But you lose out on some statistical feedback.