Googlebot + IFrames? [closed]

Question

How does googlebot treat iframes? Does it follow the src attribute like a link? Is the iframe content analyzed as if it was part of the page where it is included?

Answer 1

IFrames are sometimes used to display content on web pages. Content displayed via iFrames may not be indexed and available to appear in Google's search results. We recommend that you avoid the use of iFrames to display content. If you do include iFrames, make sure to provide additional text-based links to the content they display, so that Googlebot can crawl and index this content.

From the Google Webmaster Guidelines

The iframe content isn't included in the original page. If you want the content indexed, try providing a text link to the src page. If you don't want it indexed, use the meta robots tag or robots.txt to restrict the file.

Answer 2

Anecdotal evidence suggests it treats it like a link (so you can end up with a page designed to be viewed inside the frame being loaded on its own via a link from a search engine).