Last updated on May 17th, 2024
How do you encourage people to stay on your ecommerce website? Make your pages as exciting and engaging as possible. This is where 3D virtual showcasing comes into place.
iFrames are an easy and convenient way to make your pages interactive and fun with 3D models and WebAR capabilities. Grab the HTML code, add it to your site, and you’re good to go!
However, are iFrames SEO friendly? There’s a lot of debate as to whether you should use them or not.
In this post, let's review if iFrames are bad for SEO, how Google handles iFrames, and best practices for iFrames and SEO.
What is an iFrame?
An iFrame (or inline frame) is a piece of HTML code that lets you embed a piece of content within a webpage (known as the ‘parent page’).
Think of an iFrame like the picture-in-picture TVs you can get that allow you to watch two different shows at the same time!
You can use iFrames to embed content from trusted platforms into your website. By a trusted platform, I mean one that is secure, reliable, and well-known, like Google, YouTube, Facebook, Microsoft or any SaaS specific product.
3D virtual try-on needs an active rendering of 3D models to be displayed in AR. If you host them directly on the website for rendering, that can slow your site performance down significantly. Instead, if the WebAR apps are rendered in cloud and you add them to the website via iFrame, it can save provide an optimum user experience.
Are iFrames Bad for SEO?
Every element of your webpage can impact your SEO, and iFrames are no exception.
So, are iFrames bad for SEO? The answer is that it depends.
iFrames can reduce your page speed. This is because you’re effectively loading two websites at the same time.
iFrames can be a security risk. If the content inside the iFrame is compromised, this can put your website at risk, leading to a manual penalty or demotion in the search engine results.in the search engine results.
However, iFrames can be beneficial for SEO too. By embedding engaging content on your website, you’re enhancing the user experience, which can boost your search engine ranking.
The key to iFrame SEO impact is to ensure your iFrame content enhances the page experience rather than detracting from it.
How Goolge Handles iFrames
There are a lot of mixed messages about how Google handles iFrame content.
Let's demystify some of them regarding Google iFrame SEO.
Google Doesn’t Crawl Content Inside iFrames: False
Over time, search engines have become more advanced and can now crawl content within iFrames. This means content within an iFrame can contribute to your search engine ranking.
It’s important to remember that while iFrame content can appear in the search engine results, it’s not guaranteed. It depends on:
How relevant the content in the iFrame is to the search query.
The title and description of the iFrame (we’ll look at this in more detail later).
Whether the iFrame can be crawled, for example, if it’s blocked by robots.txt or is behind a paywall.
Google Sees iFrames as Dangerous: False
Some people think iFrames are a security risk as cybercriminals can exploit them to compromise security on the embedded websites.
For example, let’s say a hacker wants to steal personal data from users of an online forum. They could inject malicious iFrames into user profiles, redirecting users to a fake login page, where they are tricked into providing their usernames and passwords.
Can iFrames be problematic in the wrong hands? Yes. However, you minimize the risk by only embedding iFrames from trusted sources.
Google Prioritizes iFrames Over Other Content: False
Another myth about iFrame SEO is that Google crawls iFrame content before other content on the parent page. This can make some website owners reticent to use iFrame content as they believe Google will index it at the expense of their own content.
Search engine bots typically crawl the main content of a page first, like the images and text, as this information provides them with the most context. Then, additional elements like iFrames are analyzed. This means parent website is always indexed first even if you use iFrames.
Google Considers iFrames as Duplicate Content: False
Duplicate content in Google won’t necessarily tank your search engine rankings unless you’re copying massive amounts of information or doing it with malicious intent.
The good news is that Google doesn’t consider content contained in iFrames as duplicate content. This is because Google is smart enough to understand the original source of the content and attribute it accordingly.
iFrame SEO Best Practices
If you want to include iFrames on your website, there are some tweaks you can make to ensure your iFrames don’t harm your search engine rankings.
Here are some of the top recommendations for iFrame SEO advised by famous SEO marketing expert Neil Patel.
Utilize Lazy Loading
Elements on a page are loaded depending on where they are in the HTML code. You can use lazy loading to override this and tell browsers to load iFrames at the last minute.
Lazy loading means that elements only load when they are needed. When you enable lazy loading, it will only load up when a user scrolls near it, helping improve the loading speed of your page.
To enable lazy loading, go into your HTML code, find your iFrame tag and add loading=”lazy” to it, like this.
<iframe src="https://example.com/" loading="lazy">
</iframe>
Implement Descriptive and Keyword-Rich iFrame Content
While search engine crawlers like Google can index iFrames, any additional data you provide will increase the chances of your parent page ranking for the right keywords.
This means it’s essential to supplement your iFrames with descriptive information and relevant keywords.
Ensure iFrames Have Proper Titles and Descriptions
Did you know you can add a title and description to your iFrame? This can make your iFrame more SEO-friendly as you can use relevant keywords.
A title and description can also make your iFrame more accessible, as people using assistive technology like screen readers can understand what your iFrame contains.
Here’s how your title and description might look in your HTML code:
<iframe src="https://www.example.com/content.html" title="Title"
description="Example Description."
width="500" height="400"></iframe>
Set Appropriate iFrame Attributes for SEO-Friendly Embedding
One of the great things about iFrames is that you can customize them to your specific needs. For example, you can edit the HTML to enable lazy loading, and add a title and description.
There are other iFrame attributes you can edit too, including:
Width and height to ensure your iFrame fits the design of your page.
Sandbox. Enabling the sandbox is a security feature that means your iFrame can’t access information about its parent page. Bear in mind that allowing this attribute may mean your iFrame doesn’t work as it should.
Allowtransparency, which sets the background to transparent.
Scrolling. This determines whether your iFrame can scroll vertically and horizontally.
Use the Noscript Tag to Provide Alternative Content
What happens if someone can’t access your iFrame content? For example, if they are using a browser that doesn’t support JavaScript.
They’ll just see a blank space where the iFrame could be. If this causes them to leave your site, this could lead to your SEO taking a hit.
In this scenario, you can use the noscript tag to provide alternative content that displays if JavaScript isn’t supported. For example, if you use 3D product display via iFrame which fails to load, you can show a static image instead.
Are there any SEO-friendly iFrame alternatives
One of the best alternatives is AJAX. You can use AJAX to fetch data in the background and update a webpage without a full reload. While it can be faster, it can be hard to implement on a parent page without the proper technical knowledge. Not all browsers support AJAX, which means you need to have an alternative system in place.
What's Next?
Marvin XR has built a bank grade security across its platform to ensure that whenever the WebAR contents are used, especially on customer websites via iFrames, it comes clean via Google search indexing and iFrame scanning. Adding WebAR campaigns on product pages do not get exposed to any threat or hacking attempts due to dynamic SSL certificate which gets auto-renewed every 90 days.
Contact Marvin XR to get a free demo to see how to empower ecommerce business in 2024 with web augmented reality.
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