I know we all have busy lives and creating unique and link-invoking content that also looks good to a user can seem like a hassle, but despite that you should never cloak for SEO purposes (to higher ranking in the search engines). Below I’ll explain what cloaking is, how it works, and how you could get your website(s) penalized for using cloaking in your search engine optimization strategy.
What is Cloaking?
In layman’s terms, cloaking is a way to trick the search engines into finding a different web page then the one you are actually displaying to the user. The technique involves using the IP addresses or the User-Agent HTTP header of the user requesting the page, sort of a like a railroad fork directing a train. Like the cowboys of the Old West, you’d be giving yourself a black hat rather than being the hero who rides in with a white hat and saves the day. Don’t be a black hat.
What are the Benefits of Cloaking
To the naive marketer, cloaking can allow you to display your non-text heavy website that looks amazing to the user, which may increase the probability of the user buying a product or using a service. Sometimes a business owner or marketing personnel may not be able to perform search engine optimization because a previous website was purchased for thousands of dollars, where only later did they learn that all-Flash based websites or non-accommodating design restricts SEO potential. I understand and empathize with you, but kick the cat if you have to, because “you did it wrong” and you just have to accept that and make modifications.
Why You Should Not Cloak for SEO
First and foremost, it violates search engine terms and conditions. See below.
If that’s enough to convince you, consider this: If a competitor discovers what you are doing (and they will), they could report you to the search engines. I’ve used this spam report form and you should to.
If you are flagged, your website could be penalized indefinitely. If you take corrective action, you could still be penalized for up to 6 months for attempting to manipulate search engine results.
A Better Solution
The hybrid car isn’t the best solution to fixing air pollution, but it is so much better than the alternative. To comply with SEO Standards, you should consider enhancing your website to be a hybrid of great design and structured content.
Perhaps create a new row below your great design elements (below the fold in the browser that requires scrolling to view). You can also use cascading style sheets (CSS) to create an area within the design that works similar to an iframe. Check out how JNRCorp.com did this by viewing the source code on this page.
You don’t have to trick the search engines by using cloaking for SEO to get great results. Just spend some time working to integrate both a great user experience and relevant structured text-based content and you will eventually get the results you’re looking for without the risk of losing all of your search engine-driven traffic.
Comments? Please share your experience or opinion on cloaking below.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
This is an awesome article! I would never steep down to cloaking, but over the past couple weeks I have been racking my brain with ideas on how to create a great site yet include the SEO standards. My site needs a PILE of work – I’m getting to it and am going to soon trash my current site. The site that I have really been focusing on is http://www.timberlostoutfitting.com … I have been working on the site for the past couple of months and I have been thinking that it is coming along great – until I sent it in to WebsiteGrader and it came out with an embarrassing score of 6! Thanks for the tips and advice
You asked me to participate, so I’ll try to share a few comments from time to time.
This is a good start but the cloaking discussion is a complex one. There are people who use these technologies to benefit both users and search engines.
For example, some entertainment companies show content in one country that is not available in other countries. They have to use IP detection to make a best guess about who should and should not have access to their content.
And there are other pro-cloaking arguments, some of which may be a bit dated because new technologies make it possible to optimize the user experience and the search experience separately without swapping pages.
I think any standard dealing with this complex issue has to focus on both intent and the end result. If the intent is to deceive the users with a goal of depriving them of a fair experience, then it’s not acceptable. But in some circumstances the intent is to abide by legal or contractual obligations or to ensure that users find what they are indeed looking for.
You’re right Michael. In some circumstances, bending the rules a little is not always an option, but sometimes a necessity.
Not so-much related to cloaking, Disney.com had to undergo a massive strategy for SEO when the news came down that they’d be rolling out an all-Flash website. Fortunately, the company hired my friend Mei Huang (http://twitter.com/meihuang) who helped insure the right amount of scripting went into the architecture to insure that the new wonderful UI didn’t hose years of optimization work. As I recall, she was in constant communication with Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, to insure that Disney followed the rules. Cloaking wasn’t involved, but a whole heck of a lot of JavaScript was.
If a project is a big enough to warrant the need for cloaking by user-agent, it might be prudent to reach out directly to Google for guidance. Maybe even a quick ping to http://twitter.com/mattcutts might be in order. I’m sure he appreciate the fact that a business is asking before jumping to a conclusion that could get a site penalized.
Either way, the risk is worded by Google as “Serving up different results based on user agent may cause your site to be perceived as deceptive and removed from the Google index.”
The link:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66355
They also identified an approach to handle these types of scenarios, “Ensure that you provide the same content in both elements (for instance, provide the same text in the JavaScript as in the noscript tag). Including substantially different content in the alternate element may cause Google to take action on the site.”
So as you mentioned, there are good and bad reasons to use the technique, but if you are still returning the same content (in one form or another), you have less of risk of penalty.
Thanks so much for participating by the way, it’s an honor to have you here.
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