A frameset is an html document that enables you to divide your screen into different sections, so that you have two or more documents showing at the same time in fixed places. This can be a great option for things such as a navigation bar, but their implementation can also cause some problems.

- They make navigation easier. Even if you include a navigation bar in each page, your users will still have to scroll up and down the page in order to find it. When the page moves, so does the navigation bar. A frame remains accessible no matter what.

- If you want to include a navigation bar that lists each and every page of your website in each page, this bar would almost certainly be too confusing to be a practical solution. A couple of frames would be far more manageable.

-They simplify the updating process enormously, since you don't have to change the code in each and every page of your website. Adding a totally new section to your website suddenly becomes far more feasible proposition.

- Implementing them for the first time may seem to be a really daunting endeavor. Simply put, designing a frameset is not the most intuitive process.

- Frames and robots don't mix. In other words, you may have some trouble getting your site listed by most search engines. If you use frames, use the <no frames> tag, it helps you overcome this problem.

- You lose track of where you are. Keep in mind that titles and frames don't mix. No matter how many documents you visit within a website, your title bar, and your location bar, will continue to indicate that you are in the URL where you first encountered that frameset.

- Linking to and from a frameset can be a real headache, but this is not an insurmountable problem (see below for an explanation on how to deal with this).

One of the main problems with frames is the fact that they do such a wonderful job of complicating linking from one site to another, so how do you link to and from a webpage that uses frames?

If you want to create a link to a specific page in a site that uses frames, you certainly don't want to give your visitors a complicated set of instructions explaining what to do once they get there, and wish them well, you need a way to link to the specific document, so here is what you can do:

- Go to the page you want to link to.

- Click on the specific document you wish to link to using the right button of your mouse (ctrl click, or click hold, for mac users) and choose "Open Frame in New Window".

- Copy the URL that appears on the Location Bar of the new window (the one that now displays the document you want to link to without the frameset).

-Link to that URL.

Now, if your site uses frames and you want to link to someone else's page, you have two ways to allow your visitors to break free from own your frames:

- Use the tag TARGET="_top" to make sure the link opens in the outer window.

- Use the tag TARGET="_blank" to open the link in a new window.

As rule I use "_top" in the links section, and "_blank" in the main text. This means, I assume that the person who is in the links section wants a way out, but the one who is reading a specific document is merely making a side trip.

When using frames

As a final note, if you decide that you want to use frames on your website, you should take into account a couple of things:

- Don't abuse the concept of frames. Each frame should serve a purpose.

- Make sure your visitors don't get stuck in your frames. Always open external links outside your frameset (an extension to your site, such as a message board you control, could be an exception)

- Even if it seems to be a little out of place, add a link to your home page from every major document on your site, to enable those visitors that don't come through the home page to find their way around.

- There are those who dislike frames, and even some with browsers that can't handle them. Keep this in mind and provide a no frames option, even if it is far from perfect.