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.