Comments on: When Is It Okay To Cloak? http://www.searchrank.com/blog/2007/04/when-is-it-okay-to-cloak.html Featuring news, opinion and commentary related to the industry of search engines and marketing. Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:12:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: matt http://www.searchrank.com/blog/2007/04/when-is-it-okay-to-cloak.html/comment-page-1#comment-150 matt Sat, 06 Oct 2007 16:23:48 +0000 http://174.133.136.242/blog/?p=324#comment-150 Cloaking is still a controversial subject, although there is nothing bad about doing it. Here is an article related to cloaking. Its worth to read it <a href="http://seomization.blogspot.com/2007/10/cloaking-black-hat.html" rel="nofollow">http://seomization.blogspot.com/2007/10/cloaking-black-hat.html</a> Cloaking is still a controversial subject, although there is nothing bad about doing it. Here is an article related to cloaking. Its worth to read it

http://seomization.blogspot.com/2007/10/cloaking-black-hat.html

]]> By: beussery http://www.searchrank.com/blog/2007/04/when-is-it-okay-to-cloak.html/comment-page-1#comment-148 beussery Fri, 13 Apr 2007 12:22:46 +0000 http://174.133.136.242/blog/?p=324#comment-148 "Can they deliver a text only based version of the site and then use IP delivery to detect search engine spiders from real users?" They can do anything they want and so can Google. Google quality guidelines say: -Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as "cloaking." - Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?" <a href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769</a> Either way, you have already answered your own question: "Technically it violates guidelines of "don't cloak"..." “Can they deliver a text only based version of the site and then use IP delivery to detect search engine spiders from real users?”

They can do anything they want and so can Google.

Google quality guidelines say:
-Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”
- Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings.

A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

Either way, you have already answered your own question:
“Technically it violates guidelines of “don’t cloak”…”

]]> By: David Wallace http://www.searchrank.com/blog/2007/04/when-is-it-okay-to-cloak.html/comment-page-1#comment-149 David Wallace Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:31:08 +0000 http://174.133.136.242/blog/?p=324#comment-149 >> Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?" The fact of the matter however is that they do exist. ;) >> Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”

The fact of the matter however is that they do exist. ;)

]]> By: Scott Clark http://www.searchrank.com/blog/2007/04/when-is-it-okay-to-cloak.html/comment-page-1#comment-147 Scott Clark Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:37:12 +0000 http://174.133.136.242/blog/?p=324#comment-147 Wish I were there having a cold one with you guys. We're going through a very similar issue with my largest client. Everyone is worried sick that if we present variations of our copy to humans and googlebot ("flowery text" versus "plain-jane-semantically-indexable-version") that we'll get banned. But the text says the SAME THING. It's just written so that it's more pleasing to humans on one hand, and more indexable on the other. There is no deception, and no changes in the subject matter. I'm not at all sure what to do, because it's not clear how Google makes the final judgement. Do they use an iron fist or a measured, thoughtful approach (like Matt tends to talk about.) And does one want to bet their main traffic source on the answer? Wish I were there having a cold one with you guys.

We’re going through a very similar issue with my largest client. Everyone is worried sick that if we present variations of our copy to humans and googlebot (“flowery text” versus “plain-jane-semantically-indexable-version”) that we’ll get banned. But the text says the SAME THING. It’s just written so that it’s more pleasing to humans on one hand, and more indexable on the other. There is no deception, and no changes in the subject matter.

I’m not at all sure what to do, because it’s not clear how Google makes the final judgement. Do they use an iron fist or a measured, thoughtful approach (like Matt tends to talk about.)

And does one want to bet their main traffic source on the answer?

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