To clarify (and because there wasn't space for more characters). Most users (those with JS enabled or a particular user agent) will get the basic page that will get some enhancents during loading/rendering time. Other visitors (those with JS disabled, or GoogleBot) will get the basic page, with the relevant/expected content, without all the other extra elements (navigation, links to related content, etc)
You are wrong, there is a white hat cloaking and it is very important. For example. If I hide admin panel from evil google bot, so nobody knew my directory structure and the file names (except me) then my website is more secure from attacks.
The way I understand it, is that you should have a link to the Spanish version from the English version of your site so that Googlebot can visit it later
You can set it up such that / on your domain redirects, but /index.html does not redirect. Then you can add links allowing the users to choose a specific version of the website, and have those link to the relevant site's index.html file.
so, it seems to me that a short url service is not good either? especially if it comes with a frame? I think I may have missed something here... I need to to study this a bit more... very interesting though thank you!
Hello sir, You did not explain one particular thing: What if our website is purely ajax based with no graceful degradation, and when we detect a Googlebot we serve it an HTML page which is equivalent to what the a user would see after the ajax calls have loaded his page? Specifically, do things like "Seoserver" fall into the "Cloaking" category? Seoserver link: github.com/thomasdavis/seoserver "Seo Server is a command line tool that runs a server that allows GoogleBot(and any other crawlers) to crawl your heavily Javascript built websites. Seo Server runs PhantomJs(headless webkit browser) which renders the page fully and returns the fully executed code to GoogleBot."
Hi Matt, the last comment you made regarding the litmus test for "power user kind of thing" did not answer the question fully if you would be in a high risk area. Our UX team ofter has questions about testing and having navigation hidden on certain pages through JS when a page loads. This would not be attempting to Spam Google or influence rankings, but to A/B test user interaction w/in our site limitations. Would this still be considered cloaking and therefore bad?
@adithecool huum, then the user will be redirected again when clic on the Spanish site. Do you mean to disable the redirection if the user comes through the link and not redirected if is coming directly? it's a bit weird no?
If I have a version of my site for text-only browsers (Lynx, w3m) that I serve based on user-agent, is it alright if I add the GoogleBot UA to that list? Or do you always want the desktop version. It seams silly that I have to render it in something like phantomjs when the text only page has the same content just presented differently.
Hi, If Googlebot crawls only from US. How can crawl a Spanish Website that redirects to the english version? In this case the Spanish Website is kind of invisible? or what?
Matt, In the not too distant future, I'm hoping to get into internet marketing in a big way. As such, I've found this video to be quite useful and informative. (Actually, that applies to all of your videos I've viewed so far.) It goes without saying that I've both "liked" this video and subscribed to your channel! Keep 'em comin'!
I have a page which rendered incorrectly in the Google preview of the page because of the way Googlebot spend several days crawling some dynamic content, which a browser would donwload in a matter of seconds. In the end I made a special case for Googlebot in order to get it to see something more like the user would see. Is that considered cloacking?
Why no mention of multivariate & A/B testing? Based on the definition of "cloaking" above, then any testing program like "Adobe Test & Target" will be considered cloaking, as they intentionally exclude Google from their tests.
But what about Cloaking Affiliate Links ?? If user lands on a specific page he was finding for and he likes the product OR service on that particular page and then clicking on the link on that page the user lands on the other page with relavent content and make a purchase. If any one can answer it ?? Please help.
It's really disappointing that this video doesn't mention Google's "First Click Free" program (which requires you to check for the useragent "Googlebot") or Google's AJAX Crawling specification, which lets you return HTMLified JavaScript just for Googlebot.
What about the Accept-Language header? Not everyone in a given country necessarily speak's that countries language very well. Tourists are a good example. IP address is a decent backup *if* there is no Accept-Language header or it contains no available languages.
What if I send you a bit different version just to make it easier to parse? I'm not gonna put different text, images, links. How to promote a website the best way? I'm not gonna trick your bot to put my website higher.
This doesn;t pertain to Google,but I find annoying that Canada who spells like the U.K.does not have an option in which it appears your from the U.K. not Canada,or the other choice is to appear like an American.Either way Canadians appear to be from somewhere else and the equivalent of Google Bot is given false info.
Since Googlebot crawls from the US. you'd be treating googlebot and the user the SAME way: you would be redirecting them to the english version. As long as they are the SAME experience, it isn't cloaking
To cover the nonworking and diverting the real issues these useless and unnecessary contaversies are brought into forefront. Otherwise what purpose is served and what gain is made by these roumermongers
Subscribe to Google Search Central Channel → goo.gle/SearchCentral
It's amazing that Matt Cutts is re-pushing this the day after the distilled conference in NY.
To clarify (and because there wasn't space for more characters).
Most users (those with JS enabled or a particular user agent) will get the basic page that will get some enhancents during loading/rendering time.
Other visitors (those with JS disabled, or GoogleBot) will get the basic page, with the relevant/expected content, without all the other extra elements (navigation, links to related content, etc)
You are wrong, there is a white hat cloaking and it is very important.
For example. If I hide admin panel from evil google bot, so nobody knew my directory structure and the file names (except me) then my website is more secure from attacks.
I loved Matt's style of talks , I miss Matt ! #chrispalmerseo
The way I understand it, is that you should have a link to the Spanish version from the English version of your site so that Googlebot can visit it later
You can set it up such that / on your domain redirects, but /index.html does not redirect. Then you can add links allowing the users to choose a specific version of the website, and have those link to the relevant site's index.html file.
so, it seems to me that a short url service is not good either? especially if it comes with a frame? I think I may have missed something here... I need to to study this a bit more... very interesting though thank you!
7:11 The best 30 seconds.
IE7? What year was this video made?
Great comments!
Hello... very helpful, thanks
Slightly of topic;- what's the Google thinking on the use of stealth forwarding please? Sadie
Is sending the user based on IP, is consider as cloaking ?
Hello sir,
You did not explain one particular thing: What if our website is purely ajax based with no graceful degradation, and when we detect a Googlebot we serve it an HTML page which is equivalent to what the a user would see after the ajax calls have loaded his page?
Specifically, do things like "Seoserver" fall into the "Cloaking" category?
Seoserver link: github.com/thomasdavis/seoserver
"Seo Server is a command line tool that runs a server that allows GoogleBot(and any other crawlers) to crawl your heavily Javascript built websites. Seo Server runs PhantomJs(headless webkit browser) which renders the page fully and returns the fully executed code to GoogleBot."
having random chuck norris facts in your keywords, guarantees top SERP.
Hi Matt, the last comment you made regarding the litmus test for "power user kind of thing" did not answer the question fully if you would be in a high risk area. Our UX team ofter has questions about testing and having navigation hidden on certain pages through JS when a page loads. This would not be attempting to Spam Google or influence rankings, but to A/B test user interaction w/in our site limitations. Would this still be considered cloaking and therefore bad?
@adithecool huum, then the user will be redirected again when clic on the Spanish site. Do you mean to disable the redirection if the user comes through the link and not redirected if is coming directly? it's a bit weird no?
If I have a version of my site for text-only browsers (Lynx, w3m) that I serve based on user-agent, is it alright if I add the GoogleBot UA to that list? Or do you always want the desktop version. It seams silly that I have to render it in something like phantomjs when the text only page has the same content just presented differently.
Hi, If Googlebot crawls only from US. How can crawl a Spanish Website that redirects to the english version? In this case the Spanish Website is kind of invisible? or what?
Matt,
In the not too distant future, I'm hoping to get into internet marketing in a big way. As such, I've found this video to be quite useful and informative. (Actually, that applies to all of your videos I've viewed so far.)
It goes without saying that I've both "liked" this video and subscribed to your channel!
Keep 'em comin'!
I have a page which rendered incorrectly in the Google preview of the page because of the way Googlebot spend several days crawling some dynamic content, which a browser would donwload in a matter of seconds.
In the end I made a special case for Googlebot in order to get it to see something more like the user would see. Is that considered cloacking?
Why no mention of multivariate & A/B testing? Based on the definition of "cloaking" above, then any testing program like "Adobe Test & Target" will be considered cloaking, as they intentionally exclude Google from their tests.
But what about Cloaking Affiliate Links ??
If user lands on a specific page he was finding for and he likes the product OR service on that particular page and then clicking on the link on that page the user lands on the other page with relavent content and make a purchase.
If any one can answer it ?? Please help.
Simply stated, just treat each webpage as though a real human will view it.
It's really disappointing that this video doesn't mention Google's "First Click Free" program (which requires you to check for the useragent "Googlebot") or Google's AJAX Crawling specification, which lets you return HTMLified JavaScript just for Googlebot.
The sound volume is a bit low.
What about the Accept-Language header? Not everyone in a given country necessarily speak's that countries language very well. Tourists are a good example. IP address is a decent backup *if* there is no Accept-Language header or it contains no available languages.
Nice informative video.
You could ajax content loads instead of redirects.
What if I send you a bit different version just to make it easier to parse? I'm not gonna put different text, images, links. How to promote a website the best way? I'm not gonna trick your bot to put my website higher.
Thanks for it
Very useful, though a bit too long on topic.
This was very helpful thanks!
Its Very Helpful
This doesn;t pertain to Google,but I find annoying that Canada who spells like the U.K.does not have an option in which it appears your from the U.K. not Canada,or the other choice is to appear like an American.Either way Canadians appear to be from somewhere else and the equivalent of Google Bot is given false info.
Also, why are you mentioning IE instead of Chrome?
Thanks sir for your valuable information
Is it me or Matt looks quite young in this video?
"..and everybody is happy" :-)
very helpful.
IE7 was never standardized box model ... ;-)
tnx, познавательно и поучительно +1
lol, now Chrome just translates language client side :D 2011 tch tch.
Nice video but it does not go into detail how to actually cloak lol
Google has extensive guidelines how to do this. Please google. LoL.
do you have any example video for cloacking
If I search cartoon and end up with a new porn site, I would be like
MUHAHAHAHA
Matt swears @ 5:25
Since Googlebot crawls from the US. you'd be treating googlebot and the user the SAME way: you would be redirecting them to the english version. As long as they are the SAME experience, it isn't cloaking
Googlelandia 😂😂
Hi ,sorry out of topic, i want to ask, how to out from google sandbox? Everybody please reply my ask .
>>> GOOGLE If I'm uploading a file while you are scanning my site will it mistake it for Cloaking ?
i have been cloaking for 10 years now without any issue
Круто!
GoogleBot HAPPY!
i am also HAPPY!
And Googlelandia is also happy..
Thank You.😂😂
I'm here for the story about the paper clip. Where's the god damn paper clip? I think we're talking about 2 different types of cloaking...
q carajo tas hablando
porn SEO and chuck norris meta tags are a win!!!!!!!! :D
Porn and cartoons its same thing. hahah
nothing about showing content behind paywalls/registration to crawlers. so not quite definitive :-)
Great video #GoogleIndia
To cover the nonworking and diverting the real issues these useless and unnecessary contaversies are brought into forefront. Otherwise what purpose is served and what gain is made by these roumermongers
I watched this cause I thought he was gonna talk about invisibility...whoops