Hi there, I've never done any cloaking so I don't really know the rules about this stuff, but are you allowed to cloak parts of the site to make it more readable for the crawlers? Let's say you have some crappy javascript code, maybe some advertising and stuff you don't really want to search engines to see. Are you allowed to make a little script that takes it out? In my case it would be some stuff from the header, footer and a few widgets in the sidebar. I'm not trying to hide anything I'm afraid for the search engines to see, I just want to take out some parts to make it more readable and accessable for the crawlers.
You can use things like CSS image substitution techniques to replace a block of text (commonly headings and menu links) with graphical versions, as well as using things like CSS based dropdown menus - they'll stil be available as plain text to users who have images and/or CSS turned off/disabled/not supported. As for the ads, use JavaScript - the search engines really don't parse that stuff anyway. Other than that, don't touch it with a 100 meter (or yard) pole.
Alt attribute for images and title attribute for links might also be good for this purpose. Neat and clean SEO friendly way of putting extra information.
That's not cloaking. That's helping to ensure that a site is accessible and usable - which are two entirely different things (which search engines can equally benefit from).
Well, part of the reason why I posted that reply was to clear up any potential confusion that may befall people who read your post in the future. <?xml version="1.0"?> <yoda> <quote>Always thinking ahead, this one is. Yes...</quote> </yoda> Code (markup):
Lol. Many people will most read the first post and send a response irrespective of the fact that it has been already said. But you are right about that. My post should have been more detailed