We Make eCommerce Simple for Small Businesses
  SEOsamraat
  • SEO Home
    • SEO for Corporates >
      • Beat Your Competition With SEO
    • Power Searching
    • Keyword Research
    • SEO Best Practices
    • Types of SEO
    • SEO for Images
    • Optimized Content
    • SEO Tools
    • Webmaster Tools
    • SEO History
    • Future of SEO
    • SEO Basic Consulting
  • Workspace Home
    • Store It All on Drive
    • Move Write with Docs
    • Work with Sheets
    • Collaborate with Slides
    • Win Big Thru Sites
    • Sync Calendars to Meet
    • Get Secure with Vault
    • Get a Quote
  • Online Reputation Home
    • ORM Security
    • ORM Keywords
    • ORM Hiring and Training
    • ORM Legal Landscape
    • ORM Social Media Policy
    • ORM Tools
    • ORM Branding
    • ORM Goals
    • ORM Strategy
  • Blog
  • Digital Products
    • Password Creation Checklist
    • Glossary of ORM Terms

The Perfectly legit origins of cloaking

22/10/2014

4 Comments

 
Picture
If your website is showing one type of content to site visitors, and another type to the Google bot, it is considered to be practicing the dark art of cloaking by the search engine giant. Soon Google will impose a penalty since it considers cloaking to be a violation of its Webmaster guidelines.

You have to then follow an elaborate remedy process using the Fetch as Google Tool in Webmaster Tools. It is all about narrowing down and detecting that part of your site which looks different to the search bot compared with what is seen by the naked eye. The problem content has to be then removed.

You are also believed to cloak if your site redirects users to a different page than what Google saw. Here the remedy is to identify those URLs doing the redirect and have them removed.

Once these remedies are done, a site owner has to use the Reconsideration Tool and ask Google to remove the penalty. It’s a long process and one has to have lots of patience. It’s much better to make sure that the penalty is never slapped on your website in the first place.

Because of Google’s no-nonsense stance, popular sentiment is against cloaking, which is considered a criminal activity. But please remember that site owners may have have their innocent reasons for why they did cloaking. So a blanket labeling of cloaking as ‘criminal’ is not the right approach.


NETSCAPE KICKED OFF CLOAKING

Recently, while reading an interview with Greg Boser, one of the pioneers in the field of Search Engine Optimisation, I got a totally different view on cloaking.

According to him, cloaking began as a well-intentioned, perfectly legitimate activity. It goes like this. At one time, Netscape was warring with Microsoft for survival after the Redmond giant released its own version of a user-friendly browser (Internet Explorer) and distributed it free with its operating system. The intention was to kill Netscape, which it eventually did. Netscape was a pioneer which made Net access easy for the masses by creating a easy-to-use browser, which it had given away free.

It is difficult to believe now that before Netscape came along, a user had to type in a series of code to access the World Wide Web. The Web would have remained a plaything of the nerds if a browser like Netscape hadn’t come along.

To cut the story short, Netscape worried that folks at Redmond were accessing its site and doing competitive analysis constantly to find out what it was up to. To prevent this, engineers at Netscape identified the series of IP addresses used by Microsoft and prepared a dumbed down version of its website exclusively for Microsoft folks opening its website.

This was how cloaking began as a perfectly legitimate activity according to Greg Boser. But of course, it was later misused a lot.

e.o.m.


4 Comments

    Archives

    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    September 2013
    August 2013
    April 2013

    Author

    I'm Georgy S. Thomas, the chief SEO architect of SEOsamraat. The Searchable site will track interesting developments in the world of Search Engine Optimization, both in India as well as abroad.

    Categories

    All
    30th Annual TED Conference
    A/B Testing
    Adsense
    Adwords
    Aggregation
    Airgapped Computers
    Alex Gawley
    Algorithms
    Amazon
    Andreessen Horowitz
    Andy Conrad
    Astro Teller
    Ben Horowitz
    Bill Gross
    Bing
    Bitcoin
    Boston Dynamics
    Brand Management
    Brin
    Buchheit
    Business Insider
    Cailliau
    Charlie Rose
    Code Messages
    Coders
    Competitive Analysis
    Credit Card
    Crown Jewels
    CSAT
    Cutomers
    Cyberattackers
    Cyber Criminals
    Cybersecurity
    Cyber Security
    Cyber Siberia
    DATA PROTECTION
    David Krane
    DeepMind
    Digital Assassination
    Digital Innovation
    Diversity
    Donkey Kong
    Douglas
    Douglas Edwards
    Doxing
    Driverless Car
    Dunbar Number
    EBook
    Ebooksearch
    Ebookseller
    Ebooksellers
    Ecommerce
    English Auction
    Facebook
    Facebook Page
    Fetch As Google Tool
    Financial Times
    Flat Organization
    Flicker
    Fortune
    Fraudulent Activity
    Generic Names
    Giant Target Corp
    Gmail
    Google
    Google Analytics Tool
    Google Apps
    Google Chauffeur
    Google Maps
    Google Search
    Google Story
    Google X
    GoTo.com
    Greg Boser
    Gregg Steinhafel.
    Guruji.com
    Hackers
    How To Queries
    Huffington Post
    Human Flesh Search Engines
    IBM
    I'm Feeling Lucky
    Incentives
    Internet
    IP Addresses
    Japanese Auction
    Jeff Bezos
    Jeffrey Brewer
    Jill Abramson
    Kellogg’s
    Keyword Research
    Kindle
    Larry
    Larry Page
    Lidar
    LinkedIn
    Links
    Lori Randall Stradtman
    Luck
    Mail
    Malware
    Mark Davis
    Mauboussin
    Michael Mauboussin
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Stable
    Moonshot
    More Than You Know
    Neocortex
    NeXT Computer
    Nicole Perlroth
    NYT
    Nytimes.com
    Online Reputation Management
    Passwords
    Paul Buchheit
    Phishers
    Phrasal Searches
    Planet Google
    Project Loon
    PROPUBLICA
    Puzzles
    QWERTY
    QWERTY VS. DVORAK
    Recommend
    Reconsideration Tool
    Reid Hoffman
    Richard Torrenzano
    Robert Cailliau
    Robin Dunbar
    Satya Nadella
    Scams
    Schaft
    Scoop
    SEARCH ADVERTISING
    Search Engines
    Search Patterns
    Search Queries
    SEO
    Seo Agency
    SEO Analysts
    SERENDIPITY
    Sergey Brin
    Shari Fujii
    Silk Road
    Skill
    Social Networking Sites
    Spam
    Spammy
    Steve Jobs
    STORY MARKETING
    Streetview
    Stross
    Success Equation
    Suspicious Activity
    Systran
    Tell-Tale
    The 20% Doctrine
    The Age Of The Unthinkable
    The Art Of Strategy
    The Atlantic
    THE BANDWAGON EFFECT
    THE DUTCH AUCTION
    The Guardian
    The Legend Of Zelda
    The New York Times
    Think Twice
    Tim Berners-Lee
    Trivia
    Union Public Service Commission
    Uper Mario Bros
    URL
    Venture Capitalist
    Vigilantes
    Webmaster
    Webmaster Tools
    Website Traffic
    Wii
    William Vickery
    Wired Article
    World Wide Web
    WYSIWYG
    Yahoo

    RSS Feed

    View my profile on LinkedIn

About Us
Contact Us
Consult Us Now
Write to Us 
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2022 Proseperity
Photos used under Creative Commons from futureshape, a4gpa, taymtaym, Esparta