## Why are frames no longer recommended?

Most current Web designers and Web standards frown on the use of frames. The main reason is that many of the benefits of using frames have been superseded by other more standard extensions to HTML, including dynamic HTML and cascading style sheets. In addition, tools like Freeway make it easy to create sites with consistent navigation bars on every page, using master pages, further reducing the benefit of using frames.

### Disadvantages of using frames

The main disadvantages of using frames are as follows:

Disadvantage | Explanation
Search engines | Search engines like Google usually index each frame of a frame-based page separately, so that when you link to the page containing the search term you see just the frame containing the search term rather than the full frame-based page.
Printing | Most current Web browsers can only print one frame of a frame-based page, so users cannot keep a printed copy of the whole page.
Bookmarking URLs | Because a frame-based page is displaying content from two or more URLs simultaneously, there is no way of bookmarking the page so you can return to view exactly the same content at a later date.
Accessibility problems | Frame-based pages can cause problems for visitors with visual disabilities, because many tools designed to help such users do not work with frame-based pages.
Browser history | The Back and Forward buttons in the browser can work strangely with frame-based pages.

Despite these disadvantages, many sites continue to use frame-based pages, and browsers will almost certainly continue to support them. Freeway includes support for frame-based page design, and in fact makes it far easier to design frame-based pages than other packages.

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