Page cloaking can broadly be defined as a technique used to deliver different
web pages under different circumstances. There are two primary reasons
that people use page cloaking:
1) It allows them to create a separate optimized page for each search engine
and another page which is aesthetically pleasing and designed for their human
visitors. When a search engine spider visits a site, the page which has been
optimized for that search engine is delivered to it. When a human visits a site,
the page which was designed for the human visitors is shown. The primary benefit
of doing this is that the human visitors don't need to be shown the pages which
have been optimized for the search engines, because the pages which are meant
for the search engines may not be aesthetically pleasing, and may contain an
over-repetition of keywords.
2) It allows them to hide the source code of the optimized pages that they
have created, and hence prevents their competitors from being able to copy the
source code.
Page cloaking is implemented by using some specialized cloaking scripts. A
cloaking script is installed on the server, which detects whether it is a search
engine or a human being that is requesting a page. If a search engine is
requesting a page, the cloaking script delivers the page which has been
optimized for that search engine. If a human being is requesting the page, the
cloaking script delivers the page which has been designed for humans.
There are two primary ways by which the cloaking script can detect
whether a search engine or a human being is visiting a site:
1) The first and simplest way is by checking the User-Agent variable. Each
time anyone (be it a search engine spider or a browser being operated by a
human) requests a page from a site, it reports an User-Agent name to the site.
Generally, if a search engine spider requests a page, the User-Agent variable
contains the name of the search engine. Hence, if the cloaking script detects
that the User-Agent variable contains a name of a search engine, it delivers the
page which has been optimized for that search engine. If the cloaking script
does not detect the name of a search engine in the User-Agent variable, it
assumes that the request has been made by a human being and delivers the page
which was designed for human beings.
However, while this is the simplest way to implement a cloaking script, it is
also the least safe. It is pretty easy to fake the User-Agent variable, and
hence, someone who wants to see the optimized pages that are being delivered to
different search engines can easily do so.
2) The second and more complicated way is to use I.P. (Internet Protocol)
based cloaking. This involves the use of an I.P. database which contains a list
of the I.P. addresses of all known search engine spiders. When a visitor (a
search engine or a human) requests a page, the cloaking script checks the I.P.
address of the visitor. If the I.P. address is present in the I.P. database, the
cloaking script knows that the visitor is a search engine and delivers the page
optimized for that search engine. If the I.P. address is not present in the I.P.
database, the cloaking script assumes that a human has requested the page, and
delivers the page which is meant for human visitors.
Although more complicated than User-Agent based cloaking, I.P. based cloaking
is more reliable and safe because it is very difficult to fake I.P. addresses.
Now that you have an idea of what cloaking is all about and how it is
implemented, the question arises as to whether you should use page cloaking. The
one word answer is "NO". The reason is simple: the search engines don't like it,
and will probably ban your site from their index if they find out that your site
uses cloaking. The reason that the search engines don't like page cloaking is
that it prevents them from being able to spider the same page that their
visitors are going to see. And if the search engines are prevented from doing
so, they cannot be confident of delivering relevant results to their users. In
the past, many people have created optimized pages for some highly popular
keywords and then used page cloaking to take people to their real sites which
had nothing to do with those keywords. If the search engines allowed this to
happen, they would suffer because their users would abandon them and go to
another search engine which produced more relevant results.
Of course, a question arises as to how a search engine can detect whether or
not a site uses page cloaking. There are three ways by which it can do
so:
1) If the site uses User-Agent cloaking, the search engines can simply send a
spider to a site which does not report the name of the search engine in the
User-Agent variable. If the search engine sees that the page delivered to this
spider is different from the page which is delivered to a spider which reports
the name of the search engine in the User-Agent variable, it knows that the site
has used page cloaking.
2) If the site uses I.P. based cloaking, the search engines can send a spider
from a different I.P. address than any I.P. address which it has used
previously. Since this is a new I.P. address, the I.P. database that is used for
cloaking will not contain this address. If the search engine detects that the
page delivered to the spider with the new I.P. address is different from the
page that is delivered to a spider with a known I.P. address, it knows that the
site has used page cloaking.
3) A human representative from a search engine may visit a site to see
whether it uses cloaking. If she sees that the page which is delivered to her is
different from the one being delivered to the search engine spider, she knows
that the site uses cloaking.
Hence, when it comes to page cloaking, my advice is simple: don't even think
about using it.
About the Author
Article by
Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected and recognized search engine
positioning specialists on the Internet. For more articles on search engine
placement, subscribe to his 1st Search Ranking Newsletter by going to:
http://www.the-easy-way.com/newsletter.html
