http://discoverlenox.com/ is the Town of Lenox Massachusetts’ new website.
According to this article the site is part of a $56,000 contract with Bodden Hamilton Partners in New York City.
On looking at the code for this site, one sees the following:
<html>
<head>
<title>Discover Lenox </title>
</head>
<frameset rows=”100%,*” border=”0″>
<frame src=”http://windowsnweb.com/
<frame src=”../EXPO PLUS/UntitledFrame-4″ frameborder=”0″ noresize />
</frameset><noframes></
<!– pageok –>
<!– 07 –>
<!– –>
</html>
Yes, that’s right. It is a frameset, a rather old-fashioned method of constructing websites, with an instance of the free WordPress software displayed in one of the frames. Search engines don’t deal with frames well. “Some search engines can’t follow framed pages at all, but even the best search engines will have problems. More importantly, many search engines choose not to index frames because they are so problematic.”
According to the Berkshire Eagle article, members of the town committee overseeing the project were concerned with the slogan “Lenoxology” and the delay in the “Launch.” How quaint. These folks seem to have a mentality that has frozen their concept of the web back to 1998, coincidentally when framesets were at the height of their popularity! This site, and I suspect, the process behind it, is completely wrong-headed.
If they had asked me, I would have suggested building on a home grown, grassroots effort to discover and nurture existing local bloggers, such as Seth Rogovoy’s excellent “BerkshireDaily”, local developers and regional portals, such as the fantastic Berkshires Live that are already organically promoting the area. It seems to me that this committee had no interest in what was already interesting to Google about their town.
The site does look ‘nice’, however that is something that will always be determined by the beholder, and the device they are using to view the site. And that has always been and will continue to be something that is difficult to nail down in the ever changing world of hand-held devices.
Smell The Town?
If you were looking for a place to stay or eat in Lenox what would you do? Would you go to discoverlenox.com and click on “Smell?”
Unfortunately, Mr. Google, the most frequent visitor to this site, will not be impressed by or care what the slogan or launch date is. It will have some problems ‘reading’ the frameset 
(This post has been re-printed in the latest issue of The Berkshire Beacon, and is available on their service that displays the publication online! That would be page 7, folks.)
Update: the site is no longer in a frameset, it now appears to be a normal WordPress installation. Also, the ‘Smell’ link is now called ‘Scent!’
Tags: Berkshire Eagle, DiscoverLenox, frameset, Google, Lenox, Rogovoy Report, WordPress