Whenever you have spent a moment reading about search engine optimization (SEO) you must have come across a term which has been termed cloaking. This may sound like a magic or even innocent approach but cloaking is really a black hat search engine optimization technique which may yield serious repercussions on the search engine like Google.

In this paper we will break down the concept of cloaking, how it works, why it is referred as a deception and what one can do instead to make sure that the ranking of the site is ethical and effective.

Definition of Cloaking in SEO

One of these is referred to as cloaking and entails a web page that looks like one thing to search engine robots (e.g. Googlebot) and appears to look like something completely different to a human.

The intention behind doing this is to deliberately affect the ranking of the search engines, enabling a page to appear more relevant or key-word laden as compared to the actual user-friendly page.

For Example:

• Googlebot considers a page to have optimized content using a keyword.
• A real visitor is introduced to an appealing page of less content or even an irrelevant one.

This does not comply with the Google webmaster principles since it is considered to be deceptive.

How Cloaking Works

Cloaking is usually done by depending on either user-agent (a visitor is either human or robot) or the identification of the IP address of the visitor.

The same way is introduced on the site:

• A ranking optimized version is provided to the search engines.
• They are provided with something that is not that to the users; even spam and irrelevant content.

This is supposed to be a cheat of the search engine to achieve a higher ranking without necessarily adding value to the user.

Common Types of Cloaking

Cloaking is carried out in various modes. Here are the most common ones:

IP-based Cloaking

Based on the IP address of a visitor, the contingent content is served. SEO-friendly pages are shown with respectable IPs of search engine bots.

User-Agent Cloaking

The server checks the user-agent of the browser of the visitor. It displays optimized content in the case that it picks up a bot like Googlebot.

JavaScript Cloaking

No JavaScript bots receive the content of one type and actual users (that have JavaScript browsers) receive the content of a different type.

HTTP Referer Cloaking

Various content is shown depending on the source of the user (i.e. a search engine or another site).

Visual Cloaking

In other cases, sites are hiding their text using white fonts on white background or the text that is readable by off-screen-viewable bots but not by the user.

Why Websites Use Cloaking

The method of cloaking is forbidden by Google rules, however, the owners of some of the sites apply these techniques in their activities to manipulate the position of search engines.

The following are some of the reasons why they do it:

Keyword Stuffing for Bots

They would like to cram keywords on a page to enable them rank high but they would not want a user to see such spam content.

Showcase Different Offers

The other websites may wish to present one type of content to the site visitor and another to the search engines in order to mislead the search engine to list the irrelevant keywords high in its ranking.

Redirect Traffic

Bait-and-swerving is also sometimes used to lure the end user by displaying them a page that relates to the end user, and then redirecting them to something entirely different (such as advertisements or affiliate products).

Bypass Ad Rules

In other instances, black hat marketers hide content which can pass through Google Ads approval systems or Facebook Ads approval systems by showing a clean site to moderators and a different site to users.

How Google Detects Cloaking

Google has evolved to become so advanced in identifying cloaking in numerous aspects:

Manual Reviews

Google quality assurance team can review a suspicious website on a case-by-case basis so long as the site is reported.

Automated Bots

Googlebot is a regular crawler of websites. It has the right to place the site on notice in case it detects discrepancies between its vision and the vision of its users.

Machine Learning

Higher AI is used by Google to find a pattern and behaviors connected with cloaking.

User Reports

Google has a Spam Report Tool that allows the visitor to report on the deceitful information.

Risks and Penalties

Cloaking can lead to serious consequences, which will destroy the search engine optimization and the reputation of your site.

• Manual Actions: Your web page will either incur punishment or will stop being listed under Google search engine.
• Rankings: You are also likely to lose a lot in rankings though your site has not been completely deindexed.
• Loss of Trust: It is not easy and quick to gain the trust of Google once you have been flagged.

In severe cases, one may not be able to recover at all, it might take months and even years.

Alternatives to Cloaking

It is possible to utilize real practices of the optimization of SEO without violating the Google regulations.

The following are some of the white hat SEO alternatives:

Proactive Content

Dynamism could be introduced based on the location or preferences, but make sure that both users and bots are displayed the same thing.

Responsive Design

Design a mobile friendly and appealing site without hiding information.

Structured Data

Be honest with respect to employing schema markup to have your material more comprehensible to the search engines.

High-Quality Content

Create worthwhile, interesting and original content which meets the demands of your target audience.

Proper Redirects

Use redirects, 301, where necessary and should not be deceptive.