To Cloak or not to Cloak

[Lady P]

Hi All,

I hope you're all looking forward to the weekend as much as me.

I've been puzzling over the reason why some sites are ranked really well for apparently not doing much seo.

Here's the problem...

Normally when i am researching for a new client I consider all of the usual factors:
Copy (keyword density 5%), Meta-tags (keyword rich, short and sweet), links (relevant, keywords in anchor text), sitemap (have one), Keywords in Heading tags (especially h1) etc.

I take a look at what the sites ranking high are doing and how they're doing it. I also consider the number of times a keyword is searched. If it's really highly searched (500,000+) then it's going to take more time to get to the front page. I try and manage my client's expectations where possible.

Then I come across a research project like the one I have today...

The competitive world of online job searching...

My first port of call was to see what everyone else is doing and so I typed in the most competitve keyword 'jobs' into Google.

Site number 1 is the guardian jobs http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/.

So I take a look to see what they are doing.

The answer (on the surface) seems to be 'not much'.

There are 75 inbound links (most with no keyword anchor text).

There are no meta-tags, no heading tags and many of the images don't have alt tags.

Why are they ranking so highly?

I have heard that in some cases where site's don't seem to be highly optimised yet rank really well cloaking may be used. Is there any way to test a site to see if it's cloaking.

Am I missing a trick here?

Any ideas greatly appreciated.

L

[incrediblehelp]

I assume you know the Google backlinks operator is in no way accurate. So I am sure they have 1000s of backlinks your not seeing.

Also you are testing on Google Uk. These many backlinks they could have are probably from relevant Uk websites where as other websites may have many more from the US or other countries. That would make guardian more relevant and rightfully #1 in G Uk.

[incrediblehelp]

Also what does the title of this post have to do with your post?

[Lady P]

Hi Incrediblehelp,

Thanks for the advice.

I have been using another tool other than the Google backlinks checker that - although shows me a number of inbound links to a site and their anchor text - does not show me all the inbound links. I was't aware of this before I ran some tests on another link checker recommended by someone. Turns out the Guardian Jobs site has over 1 million links.

This explains their position of Google's number 1.

The title of my post refers to my comment

'I have heard that in some cases where site's don't seem to be highly optimised yet rank really well cloaking may be used. Is there any way to test a site to see if it's cloaking.'

I was wondering if it's worth cloaking if results can be good. I have heard conflicting reports as to whether cloaking is 'white-hat' seo or not. My feeling is that it is 'blakchat' but I felt that if important, large corporation sites were doing it then maybe it may have been whitehat but now I know it's because of links (not cloaking) that they are number 1 then there's no need.

[incrediblehelp]

Dont cloak. Very, very few real reasons to cloak.

[HHI_Golf_Guy]

When I go to Yahoo and type in site:jobs.guardian.co.uk it shows they have over 1,000,000 backlinks, most of them internal. When I filter out the internal links it shows they have over 25,000 links.

Google only gives a sampling of links. Yahoo and MSN usually give a more accurate link count.

[Irishjim]

Again Incredible is spot on. Don't even use the "C" word.

[martindow]

I would have thought this site does so well as it is part of the guardian.co.uk site which is going to be highly respected as one of the most important UK sites. They don't need to bother too much and will have countless inbound links.

[webreporter]

If you must cloak, do it only if you have learned how to do it first. You can wipe out all the work you have done up to now by getting blacklisted by the SE's for getting it wrong.

Search engines like Google are SEO proof. If you want to show up high on Google you must have backlinks pointing to your site from other very important, related sites. This is Google's primary ranking criteria. Getting those inbound links can be tough, especially since most of them would come from your competitors. Are they going to want to link to you?

Good SEO takes a back seat to inbound links to your site with Google! That's why you see so many irrelevant search results with them, not to mention more corporate web sites as opposed to mom and pop sites. Many mom and pop sites get left behind, regardless of how relevant they are, simply becuase they aren't linked.

Sometimes extra measures are needed to get ranked high, and quickly. Just be careful.

[nelsonez]

........the guardian.co.uk site which is going to be highly respected as one of the most important UK sites. They don't need to bother too much and will have countless inbound links.

As a number have mentioned "The Guardian" in the UK is like the New York Times here. Their name recognition and backlinks alone will allow them practically whatever position they want. The "expert" factor and "age" factor will easily trump on-page factors such as "keyword densities" and "meta tags".

You would need alot of BlackHat techniques to even come close and even then I don't think you could compete with a site like the Guardian. Not that I would ever advocate a "BlackHat" technique such as cloaking, but I am not even sure how cloaking would make much difference if you were trying to compete against a site such as the Guardian.

Plus do you want to take the legal risk of being sued by your client if you used "Blackhat" techniques, got caught and got your client's site removed from the Google index?

This makes me wonder if this has happened yet? Has any of the SEO gurus here heard of this happening? My guess is a client could have a real legitimate case if it was proven that a person used "Blackhat" techniques that led to their client's site having its website removed from the search engines.

[Noise-Barrier]

okay...newbie question...

can someone explain what exactly "cloaking" is?

[cvos]

One of the only reasons to consider website cloaking is to protect yourself from blanket snooping from the government.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/27/1947207

[florabalance]

Cloaking as I understand it is to display one version of your web site to the typical visitor/consumer, another version to the search engine spyders. The last I saw the strategy was to rely on known ip addresses of SE spyders to distinguish the two.

What prevents google from using random ip addresses to gather some data from your site and compare the results with what their spyder sees? Personally I think the Search Engines definitely view cloaking as "black hat".

[craigmn3]

The rules are changing boys and girls and I think we've forgotten the FIRST rule of SEO, that is...what works for another can work for you. We've gotten so into keyword density, link farming, black hat, white hat, et al and we've lost track of what really does the job......Copying some one elses technique

Or at least I have

I have several sites (one that just today reached number 1 on google for my major keyword...been hanging out at 2 for a long time pat pat pat) and I have been running these sites and pages through filter and tool and sniffer and I have not been happy with the results.

The last week I put the tools away and began looking at my competition.....examining them, what it was that made them higher than me. I got official and laid out a spreadsheet with 20 or so parameters and for Google and Yahoo the answers (each one slightly different) became clear. I ripped off....er copied um ...emulated my competion and what worked for them, and all my sites are all in the top 20 now.

So the guys with no meta tags and horrible design (in tradtional seo fashion) now make sense to me why they are (were) ahead of me.

I think it's a case of not seeing the forest for the trees, being way too focused on chasing the squirrel of SEO and forgetting the basics.

When it doesn't make sense why Joe Schmoe who can't write code to save his life is in front of you....find out why!

To paraprhase Sherlock Holmes - When confronted with a situation where you have exhausted every possible scenario as to why your website is not ranking, then the impossible must be the solution

[edhan]

Never cloak your site as you will ended up banned by search engines. Think of building quality content for long term business.

[bijunair]

Can someone help me to know how to do cloaking practically??

Will be grateful.

[Peter (IMC)]

Hi All,


My first port of call was to see what everyone else is doing and so I typed in the most competitve keyword 'jobs' into Google.

Site number 1 is the guardian jobs http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/.

So I take a look to see what they are doing.

The answer (on the surface) seems to be 'not much'.

There are 75 inbound links (most with no keyword anchor text).

There are no meta-tags, no heading tags and many of the images don't have alt tags.

Why are they ranking so highly?

L

A simple answer is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

and they have a PR8.

Not that the PR it self is the key here. But it indicates it's a popular site. Links do the trick here... On-page and on-site optimization is only part of SEO. When a site is extremely popular, the links are the power behind the rankings.

[sem4u]

Peter is right. The Guardian is a long established site (and newspaper) which has a high trust value in the eyes of Google. I expect if they added another section on a different topic it would rank well...think Amazon...

[webpresence]

Hi Lady P,

I've ran a couple of link reports for the Guardian site and I'm pretty sure that the high number of quality links is the reason for their #1 position. Other factors contributing to their success include;

> The 'trust' that Google has for the Guardian site
> The shear size of the site
> It's 'resource' nature
> It's age
> It's usability (i.e. high numbers of new and returning visitors, 'add to favourites' figures etc.)


For this reason I'd recommend having your SEO strategy focus on 'niche' keyphrases (competing directly with Guardian would have you pulling you hair out!).

As for cloaking, forget about it, is it really worth compromising your relationship with Google?

Also Lady P, you wrote "ran some tests on another link checker recommended by someone" - would you be able to provide the location of this tool. We use a few different tools but would be interesting to see what others are using.

Many thanks, hope that’s helped!

[jtracking]

...and we've lost track of what really does the job......Copying some one elses technique...

Yep that and pure honest seo works for me. As Anthony Robin called it, emulation. If you emulate success you will be successful...

Now it doesn't work just by simple copying but with a few tweaks here and there emulating a successful site will being you some happy results.

[qoregexp]

I have been using another tool other than the Google backlinks checker that - although shows me a number of inbound links to a site and their anchor text - does not show me all the inbound links. I was't aware of this before I ran some tests on another link checker recommended by someone. ng.'[/i]

I would be interested in knowing what the other link checker is.

[Dinghus]

Tho cloaking has gotten a bad rap because of the way it has been used for evil (lol) there is the real reason it was originally used that is legitimate.

In the early days of SEO "emulation" *cough* was very big. If your site was #1 on Yahoo (the one to beat back then) you could bet there would be quite a few "emulations" of your site some not even bothering to change the graphics or any of the text. Trying to get those sites removed was almost impossible even when it was clear they were violating copyright laws.

What was a poor SEO person supposed to do? CLOAK. Let the spiders see your fully optimized site and let the humans see the same site, but not optimized. Meta tags stripped out, no keywords in alt tags etc etc.

Of course the darkside saw the uses they could make of this and thus now it is frowned upon. Of course one friend of mine who did the cloaking convinced Google that his cloaked site was the same as his uncloaked site and they let it stand. But that was before they were big and famous.

[bijunair]

Dear All,

I request to all the members to let me know how to do cloaking?? Please help me

[mjesales]

I often cloak affiliate links so people will see a page on my site and when i do so i use a 0% top frame and in the bottom frame i call the affiliate site that i wish to cloak. i have found these pages ranked in google as well and receiveing traffic from them - wierd i know...

The other example I have of this is a simple forwarded URL - the domain is forwarded to a replicated site - and oddly enough - it ranks 4th in yahoo - go figure - not sure why the algorithms do things sometimes.

Matt

[john@kapoo]

Mjesales just kinda touched on something that I've been trying to search the answer for.

I have a site that is well structured and nothing is ever more than 2 clicks away. However, for some main sections of the site, I want these to be memorable... Or should i say, I want to attract people straight to these pages, so what I would like to do it set up URL forwarding for these pages.

Is this a no no like cloaking? It isn't like I'm using it for spam purposes and the naming of the URLs goes with what is on the page it will be forwarding to, however I'm just worried that the likes of G may pick up on this as spammage?

Can anyone give me a heads up on this as I'd like to... or not to implement this soon, depending on what kind of feedback I get from you guys.

Thanks

John

[mjesales]

Mjesales just kinda touched on something that I've been trying to search the answer for.

I have a site that is well structured and nothing is ever more than 2 clicks away. However, for some main sections of the site, I want these to be memorable... Or should i say, I want to attract people straight to these pages, so what I would like to do it set up URL forwarding for these pages.

Is this a no no like cloaking? It isn't like I'm using it for spam purposes and the naming of the URLs goes with what is on the page it will be forwarding to, however I'm just worried that the likes of G may pick up on this as spammage?

Can anyone give me a heads up on this as I'd like to... or not to implement this soon, depending on what kind of feedback I get from you guys.

Thanks

John

You can do one thing that i have done in the past as well - which is I create a page - with a 0% frame like i mentioned above - so that i have a url to send people to. then I promote that url - but mainly just in emails and when i tell people. There are very few links to it from my site or other sites.

like domain.com/product

I've done this before and linked them from just a few sites - and sometimes these pages will show up in the search engines if the phrases are not that popular.