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Cloaking - Cloaking is a name for several Black Hat SEO
techniques that have the purpose of hiding the real content of a page reached from a
search engine. The real page is not visible to the search engine spider.
The page may be listed as containing content that is attractive to visitors, but when they click the link, they are
redirected to an entirely different page which may, for example, automatically click an
affiliate
page in order to get you to buy something, or it may be a gambling or porno site or a site that downloads Scumware.
A less evil use of cloaking is to serve Keyword rich pages
to search engines, and regular pages to visitors. Yahoo!
was caught cloaking
in their own auto listings.
Malicious cloaking is usually based on analysis of who or what is asking for the page using a
sever side script. If it is a live human, they will generally get to see the page for humans, whereas if it is a search
engine spider, they will be served the "good" page. Another application of "cloaking" is fairly innocent. It allows a
server to show different pages from the same address based on the originating IP address of the visitor, so that
visitors from different countries see pages in their own language. This should not cause degradation of the page's
position in search engines, though some people did report problems.
In mosaic cloaking, dynamic pages are constructed as "tiles of content." Only portions of the pages are changed,
simultaneously decreasing the contrast between the cloaked page and the "friendly" page while increasing the capability
for targeted delivery of content to various spiders and human visitors.
One species of cloaking is masking of the Description Meta tag
so a different tag will be generated depending on the HTTP agent. This can be used, for example to fool search engines
into thinking that a page has relevant content based on the description.
Google claims its spider can detect all kinds of cloaking and will remove such listings, but it appears that Google and
other search engines do list cloaked sites prominently from time to time.
Ami Isseroff October 4, 2008
Note - Definitions of Search Engine
Optimization terms are based on inferences from common usage and definitions given by other sources. Conclusions about
search engine behavior are based on understanding of the behavior of the most popular search engines. Both are subject
to error or may change. Search engine company management may define or use a term or set or change any policy in any way
they see fit, and may make these definitions and specifications public or not. These decisions and definitions are
beyond our control. Notice: Copyright
All materials are copyright 2008 by Ami Isseroff. All rights reserved. These pages may not be reproduced in any
form in electronic or printed media without express written permission from the author.
SEO Glossary
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