Matt Cutts of Google explains what cloaking is: serving different content to search engine crawlers than to users. He covers why it violates Google's webmaster guidelines.
Why Hacker News points people here: Cited as the authoritative definition of cloaking when discussing paywall bypasses, Quora, and A/B testing.
“Cloaking is essentially serving different content to users than Googlebot".”HN comment, 2013
“refer to or to review best practices and avoid actions that search engines could potentially view as cloaking.”
Matt Cutts video on cloaking and best practices.
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Hi saurik, that's one of the earliest videos I ever taped, back in 2006: link I had to move that video over from video.google.com, which is why the YouTube date appears more recent. I should probably make a new video or blog post about A/B testing, but I can try to summarize here. In the original video, I said: - it's nice if you can A/B test on a part of your site that Google doesn't see. Then it's a moot point for us. - failing that, it's helpful to do something server-side. - don't do anything special for Googlebot. The state of A/B testing has evolved quite a bit in the last six years though. If I were making a fresh video, I'd say: A/B testing is a perfectly fine thing to do. You can do A/B testing via either server-side or client-side technology. In both cases, don't do anything special or different for Googlebot. Treat Googlebot just like any other user and don't hard-code our user-agent or IP address. If you have any other questions, refer to link or this video to review best practices and avoid actions that search engines could potentially view as cloaking.
Cites iteksithAug 2013
“Cloaking is essentially serving different content to users than Googlebot".”
Cutts defines cloaking as serving different content to users than Googlebot.
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Not according to Matt Cutts : this video "Cloaking is essentially serving different content to users than Googlebot". I'm a user who cannot view Quora content that Googlebot has indexed even though it was a result Google said matched my query. This result is therefore unusable without modifying the URL or signing in. That is the definition of different content , HTML/CSS/JS or other semantics be damned, and a poor user experience. And that's something Google is allegedly trying to avoid. The Matt Cutts video also talks about mobile user experiences. If I worked for Quora, I'd pay close attention as I cannot view the site at all without getting their mobile app even though, again, Google said "you should check out this Quora link for this query". Edit: From the webmaster guidelines... link •Using white text on a white background •Locating text behind an image •Using CSS to position text off-screen •Setting the font size to 0 •Hiding a link by only linking one small character—for example, a hyphen in the middle of a paragraph ` When evaluating your site to see if it includes hidden text or links, look for anything that's not easily viewable by visitors of your site. Are any text or links there solely for search engines rather than visitors?
Cites itjobigoudNov 2019
“This behavior is known as "cloaking", and it is in direct violation of Google’s Guidelines.”
Cited as showing cloaking violates Google guidelines.
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This behavior is known as "cloaking", and it is in direct violation of Google’s Guidelines. this video
Cites ittyingqFeb 2023
“they say "cloaking" isn't allowed, "any type of cloaking”
Google states any type of cloaking is not allowed.
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It's also true that they say "cloaking" isn't allowed, "any type of cloaking" this video
