Cloaking: What is Cloaking in SEO & Its Types

Do you want to rank your website on the first page of Google? SEO can help you to fulfil this dream. There are different techniques used in SEO, but cloaking in SEO is the most popular and desired result provider.

In general, cloaking in SEO is a technique to hide your website’s content information from the bots and provide them with different content.

There are three general types of cloaking

• White hat cloaking
• Black hat cloaking
• Grey hat cloaking

White Hat Cloaking

White hat cloaking is doing cloaking techniques within the limitations of Google terms and conditions, e.g. using different alt keywords.

Black hat cloaking

This violates Google’s terms and conditions to rank your page on the first page of Google, e.g. Keyword stuffing etc.

Grey hat cloaking

It is a combination of both white hat cloaking and black hat cloaking.

It’s a debate among different programmers about whether you can rank your page in real while using White hat cloaking. Well, it has been observed that many people get the desired results with white hat cloaking while others get with black hat cloaking.

 Different techniques comes under the black hat cloaking are most common and widely used in the field of cloaking. Let’s discuss these techniques one by one

• User-agent cloaking
• IP based cloaking
• HTTP-REFERER cloaking
• Java script cloaking
• HTTP-accept language header cloaking

Let’s discuss them in detail.

User Agent Cloaking

In this type of cloaking, a web browser act as a user agent and an operating system is set. When a user enters a query for a specific word, the browser sends it to the program that distinguishes between crawlers and real users. So crawlers land on a different page while real users are on another page with accurate information about the website.

IP based Cloaking

In this type of cloaking, real users are filtered out from crawlers based on their IP address. Every user has an IP address based on their location and history. Using these parameters, users are redirected from a good-ranking page to the desired page. For this purpose, you can use reverse DNS records.

HTTP-REFERER cloaking

In this type of cloaking, the system checks the HTTP-REFERER status of the user and then lands them on the targeted page accordingly.

Java Script Cloaking

As Javascript is disabled in search engine crawlers, it is also a very important technique for cloaking. In this, cloakers set up the system that identifies whether javascript is enabled at the user end. If the javascript is enabled, then the cloaking system lands the user on the actual content, but if the Javascript is disabled, it means they are crawlers, and the cloaking system displays fake content.

 HTTP-accept language header cloaking

In this type of cloaking, the cloaked system checks the user response for the HTTP language header. If the HTTP accept-language header responds as a crawler, then an unnatural link is displayed for the crawlers and genuine content for the users.

Is Cloaking in SEO a Good Technique?

If we talk about the rules and regulations of Google, then it is against the law suite and performing cloaking in SEO can stake your website with a high penalty. Following are the possible drawbacks if crawlers catch you.

Account Suspension

The first reaction from Google is that they can ban your account. If you run Advertisements from the same account, your business will be at a massive loss.

Banned Website

In the worst scenarios, Google can ban your website permanently. If you are running a brand website, then you can not proceed with your brand name by creating another website.

Brand Defamation

If you are performing cloaking for a famous brand and Google catches you disobeying its rules and bans your website, it will be a significant loss for your business. Especially in the case of shopping websites.

What Can We Do For a Successful Cloaking in SEO

Always hire the best agency with good reviews and previous experience. Google crawlers are very sharp, and an experienced cloaker can compete with them. “Cloaking Ads” have the most experienced cloakers in their team who can successfully perform cloaking for your website on an affordable budget.

In What scenarios can cloaking be Justified?

Although it is against the ethics and rules of Google, there are some cases in which cloaking is justified, e.g. SEO for banned products, including healthcare pills, weight loss products, Government services, Crypto, Forex trading etc. Google does not allow such websites and any business advertisements related to these products. This is also a fact that many people in the world benefit from these products. In these scenarios cloaking is justified.

Conclusion

Cloaking in SEO uses different techniques which are very technical and can be efficiently performed by any expert. General SEO in cloaking, e.g. keywords usage, content generation, and pictures with alt text, can be performed by any person, but black hat cloaking techniques demand expertise and skills. So if you want to rank your website on the first page of Google, hire an excellent cloaking agency. That is none other than the “Cloaking Ads”.

We promise to rank your website with the maximum conversion. 

Contact us for a free consultation to learn more about your demands.