A web page can be updated by communicating modification instructions to the web page from a server, through a proxy frame of the web page, such that the modification instructions affect less than the entire web page. This method avoids having to reload the content frame every time a change to content is required thus eliminating screen flash within the browser which generally accompanies navigating between similar pages from the same web site. A source frame can be used to store methods having instructions for updating the content of the web page. These methods can be invoked from the proxy frame, further reducing the amount of network traffic generated during subsequent requests for content modification instructions.