Webmaster Tips

I've Been Framed!

If you have a content-rich website, it's quite possible you've been "framed".

That's where another website claims your content as their own by wrapping their frame around it. The person who surfs their site usually sees the other site's navigation, but YOUR content. When the surfer bookmarks the site, it bookmarks the OTHER site's address!

Here's an example of a site that frames another's content. Go to: http://www.geonetwork.org/links/topic/desig.html and click on the link for "Disposal of Treated Lumber". (there are a number of other links on this site that do the same, but they're inconsistant). Follow a link on that site, and it gets "framed" too.

This is considered rude behavior. It's a shame, because these folks do provide some good links. If a webmaster wants to reference another site's content, that's great, but give credit where credit is due... provide a link that opens the other site. If you want to keep your site in an open window while linking to another site, you can open a new window showing the referred site by using the form:

<A HREF = "http://www.theirdomain.com" target="new">

That "target="new" " part opens a new window.

How To Stop Getting Framed

We've made it very easy to stop getting framed. If you look at the very top of your web pages in a simple text editor (simpletext, notepad, wordpad, BBEdit, etc - don't use MS Word), you'll see something to the effect of:

Somewhere between HEAD and /HEAD, simply put in <MACRO Framed>, like this:

This will insert a little chunk of javascript code which will keep that page from getting Framed. To see it in action, go back to http://www.geonetwork.org/links/topic/desig.html and scroll down to the link for the Sustainable Building Sourcebook.

If your connection isn't real fast, you can see it at work - first the site gets opened in a frame, then the frame goes away and all you get is the target site. You can still use your "Back" button to get to the original site, and now when you bookmark, you actually get the site you're looking at.

If you'd prefer (or if you're not hosted at Sustainable Sources), you can always look at the source code on any of the Sustainable Building Sourcebook pages and grab the actual javascript.