In order to provide adequate exposure for our sponsors, the companies that make free web hosting at TrainWeb.org possible, TrainWeb has to insert a header at the top of every page served from the TrainWeb.org web server. (That header can be seen at the top of this page). Inserting this header also provides benefits to all of the websites hosted at TrainWeb.org, the visitors to those websites, and to TrainWeb itself. Visitors to any web page of any website at TrainWeb.org are able to more easily find information throughout the TrainWeb community of websites. This in turn, drives more visitor traffic to every website hosted at TrainWeb.org.

Since this header is automatically inserted at the top of every HTML page served from the TrainWeb.org server, pages that contain frames will not display properly. Usually, a totally blank page will appear instead of what you intended. That is the reason we have asked you to convert your site to one that does not use frames.

We did explore other methods of providing more exposure for our sponsors without using a method that disrupts the use of frames:

(1) Pop-up Ads: We don't like Pop-Up Ads and most people we know hate Pop-Up Ads. We also question their effectiveness. I'm usually able to "X" out of a Pop-Up Ad before the content ever appears. I think a lot of people do that, so I can't see how that type of advertising can be very effective. We spent very little time considering this as a solution to our problem and rejected the idea pretty quickly.

(2) Voluntary Insertion of HTML Code by each Webmaster: This is the method that we have been using since 1996. We have found it to be very ineffective and a great waste of our time to police. It is not often that webmasters remove the HTML code that we provide intentionally. Usually they just forget to insert it when they make an upgrade to their page. Quite often, the code is pasted incorrectly, which results in broken banners on the page and a lot of technical support from our staff. Many webmasters use web design tools and do not know how to even paste HTML code into their pages. This results in more broken pages and more technical support. Plus, we could only ask webmaster to paste this voluntary code on the main page of their website. To attempt to police a requirement that the code be placed on every page and then provide the tech support for broken pages, is an impossible task. Thus, this solution to the problem was also ruled out.

(3) Automatic Insertion by the TrainWeb.org webserver: This has the advantage of inserting the code automatically at the top of every web page served by the TrainWeb.org server. Our sponsors will get the maximum amount of exposure, which in the long run will result in the greatest financial ability of TrainWeb to continue to support free web hosting. Since it is automatic, we do not have to waste time policing the websites for compliance. This solution does not require any technical expertise on the part of all the webmasters, and thus requires no technical support from us to fix broken webpages. The software to insert the headers is built into the web server, and is thus very efficient and runs very fast.

Thus, we selected to go with solution #3. We thought of using this solution a few years ago, but the use of frames was widespread at that time and we felt it would be too disruptive for too many sites on TrainWeb.org. Today, less than 5% of websites at TrainWeb.org are still using frames. We have noticed that most sites that used to use frames have abandoned using that technique. Even the navigation at TrainWeb.com used to be based on frames. After receiving a large number of complaints from visitors, we also decided to abandon this technique of navigation. The complaints that we got were that the "BACK" button no longer worked properly and that the history file no longer recorded the correct page they were visiting. Frames does cause a lot of problems with the manner in which links work. I suspect that is the reason so many sites have abandoned this technique.

Now that frames has been abandoned as a widely used navigational method, especially by more than 95% of the websites hosted at TrainWeb.org, we felt that solution #3 listed above would be the least disruptive method to the vast majority of websites hosted at TrainWeb.

I apologize if your website falls into that group of under 5% of websites at TrainWeb.org that still uses frames. I understand the effort that you will have to go through to redesign your website. TrainWeb.com had thousands of webpages that we had to modify when we ourselves abandoned using frames. That was no small task. For those of you that believe that frames are still the best design for your website and do not want to modify your website, we have compiled a list of other low-cost web hosting providers. We will be sorry to see you go, but we do understand that not everyone will see eye to eye with us on this issue. For a list of alternative web hosting providers, see: http://www.trainweb.org/info/hostalternatives.html.