What is Cloaking in SEO?

Everyone wants their websites to become extraordinary and attractive to visitors. But, it is a high risk because heavy websites become unresponsive and impact on SEO performance. So ‘they’ discovered a new technique to fool the search engines, what we know as “cloaking.’ We will show what cloaking is, how it works, and what to do and not to do with it for your cyber safety. In the end, you will know whether Google penalizes for cloaking just like penalizing for AI content. If you are unfamiliar with the term cloaking, welcome to this article.

Cloaking is the practice of presenting different variations of content or URLs to search engines and users. Website owners use this method to deceive search engines by showing them one version of a web page optimized for ranking while human visitors see another version. 

Brian Davison’s study on cloaking proves that 3% of the data set is utilized in cloaking. Expert SEO service providers categorized cloaking in black hat SEO. That means people who want to rank any website on Google quickly are lovers of this technique! So, it is not a passionate and sustainable way for SEO. You have to provide a full data set to keep your records clean on Google Analytics.

What is the Purpose of Cloaking?

The main purpose of cloaking is to multiply a website's search engine rankings for specific keywords. The keywords can be one or more. Cloakers use many hidden keywords in content to manipulate search engine crawlers and indexing content. But main readers cannot view those messy keywords.

What are the Types of Cloaking in SEO?

Cloaking can be implemented in several ways, each tailored to achieve specific results. There are 5 types of cloaking popular among web developers and website owners as a ‘traffic shortcut.’

1. IP-based Cloaking: It is possible to serve different content for server IP and user IP. For example, search engine bots may see an optimized page, while regular users see a different version while visiting a website.
2. User-Agent Cloaking: The website can deliver different content based on the user-agent string sent by the browser. This method is often used to serve different versions of a site to various browsers and devices. Mobile friendly websites use this method for adjustment of visuals.
3. JavaScript Cloaking: Using JavaScript, you can display content that is hidden from search engines but visible to users. Dynamic websites use the technique a lot to enhance user experience.
4. HTTP_REFERER Cloaking: HTTP Referer is popular these days. Different content is shown based on the visitor's referrer in the process, often used to present unique landing pages to users from different sources.
5. HTTP Accept-Language Header Cloaking: You may have seen that content varies depending on the visitor's language preferences, especially for magazines or news portals. It’s intended to provide readers with information in their preferred language.

Spam website builders use cloaking in three ways. Those are keyword stuffing, content automation, and redirection. Gambling and piracy websites have the maximum amount of cloaking records. Even our researchers observed that some largest e-commerce stores, like Daraz, also use this technique to reach broader audiences. 

The Common Cloaking Processes:

• Keyword Stuffing: Keyword-rich content was a very old-school strategy from the early days of Google. So website owners tended to apply hidden keywords in large sums so that crawlers could find it and think the web page more relevant to the search queries. 
• Content Automation: It is the next step of keyword stuffing. To make the page look clean, website users used to replace it with good informative content just after loading. You may have seen a large portion of webpage changes during live streaming. That’s it!
• Redirections: The URL indexed by web crawlers for specific keywords redirects to a completely unrelated page. It frustrates users searching for relevant content. 

Cloaking is generally considered a black hat SEO technique and is against the guidelines set by major search engines like Google. The primary reason for cloaking is tricking the crawlers through IP, HTTP strings, and JavaScript. But, SEO specialists showed the ethical concerns and violations of guidelines.

1. Ethical Concerns: Cloaking is inherently fraudulent, providing different content to search engines. It breaks the trust of the public.

Violation of Guidelines: Google and other search engines explicitly prohibit cloaking. Involving in cloaking can lead to severe penalties, including being deindexed or banned from search results entirely​.

To cloak in SEO, the user must set up a system where the server distinguishes between search engine crawlers and regular users. Server-side scripts and JavaScript manipulation are the two primary ways for that. The Server-Side Scripts are scripts that detect user-agent strings or IP addresses and serve different content accordingly. And using JavaScript to hide or show content based on the user's device or browser capabilities. Despite the technical success, the ethical and practical risks associated with cloaking make it a bad strategy​.

When to Cloak

In certain scenarios, you can make use of some cloaking where variations of this technique are permissible. For example, this is acceptable when used for accessibility purposes, such as alt text for images, which helps visually impaired users understand the content. Plus, sending a static version of the website from a complicated JavaScript-based interface will not be deceptive. ​ 

When not to Cloak

Cloaking should be completely avoided in SEO as it can lead to severe penalties from search engines. Never cloak when creating content for users versus search engine crawlers; it violates Google's Search Essential Guidelines. If your website is the main source of business and leads, you must avoid it at any cost. You have to maintain Google’s EEAT criteria to increase your authority as a real service provider. 

“Did you know that now Google will prioritize the people's first content? So, you have to publish content for people without thinking about the keyword density.”

Cloaking can confuse users and search engines, leading your authority to zero. Instead, focus on creating transparent, valuable content that aligns with users' search intent. Always prioritize ethical SEO practices to build long-term success.

Cloaking in SEO example

An example of cloaking could involve a website detecting Googlebot's user agent and serving an optimized page stuffed with keywords and content tailored to improve rankings. Regular users might see a visually appealing page with minimal text and interactive elements. 

Search engines like Google take a strong stance against cloaking. If a website is found to be using cloaking to manipulate search engine rankings, it can face severe penalties, such as manual drop rankings and deindexing. Both actions can completely ruin the future of a website regarding SEO. 

Manual Action

A manual penalty significantly drops rankings or complete removal from search results. During March, Google’s content health update rollout removed many top-ranked pages from the SERP. The manual action team reviews the content to find whether it is against the Google Spam Policies. Duplicate content, cloaking, AI content, etc. everything falls under manual action.

Deindexing

Deindexing is the most unfortunate part of any website. The website may be completely removed from the search engine's index. So the service pages could be uncertain of getting leads from Google. The quality action team manages the deindexing process. So you should not use anything that portrays your webpage quality negatively.

Showing different content based on the user's geographic location won’t be cloaking. Content may be restricted to audiences in specific areas, so website owners can show different content on that page that is legal. Necessary spam or redirections are not considered cloaking.

Not all variations in content presentation are considered cloaking. There are also acceptable practices.

Again, there could be hidden content that is only viewable after browsing the web page for some time. If the website sets this type of content for user convenience, it is not cloaking. The same is valid for the content that needs payment to be viewed. Subscribed readers can get it instantly, whereas unsubscribed readers cannot see it from the same URL.

I can say—redirection is normal when you change your domain and host to a new server. If you change your site domain, your followers have no options to find you unless redirected to the new site domain.

It’s important to understand that white hat SEO involves ethical practices that align with search engine guidelines, while black hat SEO often uses deceptive techniques like cloaking and manipulative redirects, which can result in penalties.

SEO service agencies and specialists generally advise against cloaking because it can harm long-term search visibility and credibility. Many people tried to introduce a white hat cloaking. But according to Matt Cutts, former head of Google's webspam team, there is no such thing as "white hat cloaking," and any attempt to cloak content is likely to result in penalties. 

Detect Website Cloaking

Sometimes, your website is cloaked by mistake. It is better to check your website's cloaking rate regularly. You will find tools for this. SiteChecker is a prominent name among all the tools. In another way, you can search your webpage on Google with specific keywords, and check whether the bolded content is in the main page contents. 

Use the Alternative of Cloaking

Of course there are more safe ways compared to cloaking. In website development services, ‘pre-rendering’ is a trend that has taken over the dynamic website developers. Developers make a static web page with similar information and content. The Google crawlers can detect it faster as they have to scan the HTML parts of the websites. 

Moreover, cloaking works, but keyword-based cloaking does not work in 2024 at all. Google has updated its algorithm for a clean user experience. They will rank authentic blogs, service pages, and forum discussions with user-generated content. If you keep the context relevant and unique to the keywords, it will be automatically ranked on Google.

VISER X has been a trustworthy SEO service provider for over 11 years. We understand why you heavily invest in SEO for the uncompromised benefits. That’s why we develop websites that maintain all the criteria Google and other search engines set. Our developer and researcher team can work together to ensure a clean build of the website. The software team can create dynamic pages with static content presented. So, if you are looking for a sustainable journey with SEO and a website, feel free to knock us and have a chat!

Cloaking in SEO represents a low-reward strategy that can lead to severe penalties and damage to a website's reputation. Why will you rely on dangerous methods? Go for ethical SEO practices, such as creating user-friendly content and building legitimate backlinks. This is the proven way to rank web pages in 2024. Your website will be visible for related search queries if you stick with your niche and topic. 

What is the best example of cloaking content?

Adult websites show the best example of cloaking. You will find their webpage relevant to your keywords. But, the page content offers explicit content after loading. Pirated movie-downloading websites also show the same symptoms. Many gambling websites want to have fake traffic by cloaking.

Can Google crawlers identify cloaking?

Yes. Google can identify cloaking these days. Earlier, Google used to index a site and show it in search results. But now, the crawlers scan the keywords, and Google’s Large Language Model analyzes the topic. Crawlers have enough processing power to stay on-site and detect user agents, HTTP referrers, and language headers. Plus, there are manual review teams who check on a webpage. 

Why Does Google deindex after applying cloaking techniques?

Your page may be deindexed due to cloaking for having multiple contents similar to misleading readers. This practice violates Google's Webmaster Guidelines and contradicts Google’s goal of providing relevant search results. If you use cloaking, Google will detect it using its powerful crawlers.