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Google giving the OK to Premium Publishers Cloaking?

Discussion in 'Google' started by sweetfunny, Dec 28, 2008.

  1. peepin2me

    peepin2me Well-Known Member

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    #21
    Hmmm, I just checked the Google webmaster guidelines and this now seems to be a tricky issue. This is what the webmaster guidelines related to cloaking says

    The use of 'may' instead of 'will', in my opinion, means there is no hard and fast rule and hence it is up to Google to decide whether the use of cloaking in a particular website is with a deceptive intent or non deceptive intent.

    Technically, the website is serving different content to search engines and visitors but from a practical point of view, all it requires is for a visitor to login and the content is the same.

    I'm not sure what the official Google stance on this issue would be.
     
    peepin2me, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  2. maxerg

    maxerg Peon

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    #22
    People sign up or not. That's their problem. If they sign up, they'll get whatever they were searching for. If they are lazy, they won't be getting it.

    The website owners think their content is valuable and it seems a lot of people think so as well, since they have a good PR.

    If I have worked hard and written a 100 pages of paper, it's my f***ing right to require users to log in or pay to get access to it. Period.
     
    maxerg, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  3. maxerg

    maxerg Peon

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    #23
    @peepin2me, yes that's exactly the point. 'may cause your site to be perceived as deceptive'

    Only if your site is perceived as deceptive it will be getting a ban. The issue here is nowhere near it. They don't hide anything. The content is there if you comply with the site's rules.
     
    maxerg, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  4. sweetfunny

    sweetfunny Banned

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    #24
    What you are saying is comical, you still don't get it do you?

    Lets see what Google says compared to your butchered version:

    Well what do you know, Google thinks serving different content to engines and users based on Useragent is cloaking. Same as what this site is doing, same as what thousands of others have been removed from the index for.

    Why did Matt delete the comment from his blog if there is nothing wrong here?

    It's painfully obvious you know nothing about SEO, Google or running websites.
     
    sweetfunny, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  5. scubita

    scubita Peon

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    #25
    If they get clicks on Adsense BECAUSE users went there to read this "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF" (<<< that they display in SE) and they couldn't find it/or they don't want to sign up (and then click on related ads, easy option):

    That is against Adsense TOS, against any common sense and a huge scam for every advertiser. PERIOD.

    We cannot trick people to click on ads. That's exactly what they are doing. If i search for a particular key phrase and those words are "just for logged users" they shouldn't be at SERP's. Period.

    Call it cloaking, call it scam, call it sheepps if you want. It's a Scam.
     
    scubita, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  6. maxerg

    maxerg Peon

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    #26
    See my post above.

    The site at hand is clearly not percieved as deceptive. They have rules and users need to comply with the site's rules if they want to get access.

    I didn't say that I'm a SEO expert or anything but I know that I'm a reasonable person.
     
    maxerg, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  7. tattoos

    tattoos Prominent Member

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    #27
    So how is showing content to Google bot with no strings attached Vs Showing users a snippet of content with strings attached to see the rest, not being deceptive?

    What would happen if they started charging people to sign up to there site to see the rest of the content? Would you still consider it a "promotion technique"?

    Just curious

    Cheers
    James
     
    tattoos, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  8. maxerg

    maxerg Peon

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    #28
    Sorry but this is idiotic. According to this, all e-commerce sites should be removed from the index since they require you to log in and further pay to get the product.
     
    maxerg, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  9. scubita

    scubita Peon

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    #29
    You're so dumb kid, i am afraid you can beat your head into a light pole while crossing the streets... :rolleyes:
     
    scubita, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  10. maxerg

    maxerg Peon

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    #30
    This is really funny. Of course, they can charge you or do whatever they want. It's their property. Lots of people are already doing it for ages with different kinds of media.

    You search for a wordpress theme, some people give it for free, some people charge you.

    The question is whether the site really contains the thing you are looking for or not.

    Is it really so hard to understand that?
     
    maxerg, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  11. sweetfunny

    sweetfunny Banned

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    #31
    Well you seem to be having big problems understanding something black and white, if regular users and robots see different content it's cloaking.

    Think about it for a second, what if everyone cloaked a page full of text and just displayed an Adsense ad instead? Not only will you be banned from Google but banned from Adsense also and no a page does NOT deserve to rank for that content if it's not shown to regular users.

    If every site done this, Google wouldn't exist because it would be pointless searching on it.

    This site is cloaking, and deceptively displaying Adsense.
     
    sweetfunny, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  12. maxerg

    maxerg Peon

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    #32
    I'm a regular user and I can see the same content shown to the robots. So, no problem. I don't feel being decepted.

    And when you're not logged in they have two paragraphs of content on the page, which is longer than what some people post on their blogs.

    If it was against Adsense TOS, then they would have been banned till now no matter how big they are.
     
    maxerg, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  13. maxerg

    maxerg Peon

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    #33
    And why do you expect everything to be on the same landing page. I can use pagination to split the content into a few pages. Then you would have to press the next button to read the rest.
    This time you need to sign up to read the rest.
     
    maxerg, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  14. snowbird

    snowbird Notable Member

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    #34
    Webmaster World (WMW) has been doing this for a long time. Many of their posts appear at the top of Google's search results, with a good amount of juicy information as the search description. Click on the Webmaster World search listing in Google and then you are taken to a subscribe page to gain access to the forum. Nowhere on this signup page is the price listed to join, but you can click on a six month or twelve month subscription to get the pricing. Six months will set you back $89. One year rings up at $149. If you are wise enough to click the "need to register" text, you can register for free. Regardless, Google indexed the real page and you get the subscribe page to spend money if you can't find the small free register link. :D

    WMW does not hide/cloak all pages that appear in Google's index. It may be set to permit you access to x number of threads or limit your access to popular threads. But it does not take long to click on a WMW search result in Google that sends you to a signup page.

    One could argue that the use of serving different pages to visitors, in Webmaster World's case, is flat out blackhat and designed to drive up paid forum signups. Quite honestly I think it must work pretty good. WMW hides the free join link and pushes paid memberships. So in Google's eye's WMW is still "free to join" even though the push is for paid memberships. Google ignores the fact that WMW serves up selective subscribe pages to people while dishing out the real content to GBot to index 100% of the time.

    The whole WMW situation smells. Matt Cutts is more active over there, and some believe that is why WMW is allowed to cloak. I won't get into that debate, but one thing is certain. Matt Cutts has made efforts to help people join WMW. To Matt's credit, he does show people how to join for free. But it is a blow to Matt's credibility when he promotes WMW in his own blog when they are serving up selective signup pages to those that visit from a Google search.

    My personal belief is that cloaking diminishes the value of search results even if it is a simple mod used on a forum to drive up memberships. If the brief listing near the search result is not what I am going to see when I click the link, chances are I will quickly leave.
     
    snowbird, Dec 28, 2008 IP
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  15. IEmailer.com

    IEmailer.com Well-Known Member

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    #35
    This site is cloaking, plain and simple.

    Then why are even discussion such a subject ??!!!
     
    IEmailer.com, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  16. bleuken

    bleuken Peon

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    #36
    i think Google have options that you allow their spiders to crawl your password protected sites, correct me if I'm wrong. I think there's a possibility that the site was not categorized as cloaking by G because the site allows G to crawl their 'need to sign-up' pages, letting the spider access the site as user does when signed-up or logged.

    Is this cloaking, then? :)
     
    bleuken, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  17. maxerg

    maxerg Peon

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    #37
    ROFL. I are even discussion subject what?
     
    maxerg, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  18. sweetfunny

    sweetfunny Banned

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    #38
    Supposedly he done it due to "Bot Scrapers" but that excuse is a big fail because i've got a static IP and i've hit a WMW URL for the first time in weeks and been auto cloaked to the signup page. Nobody can tell me Brett can't determine bot traffic from real traffic by implementing a simple X amount of hits from an IP within X timeframe script.

    You can read about it here: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-03-05-n40.html

    Oh yeah, not only does Matt promote it but there's a sitewide link to WMW on the official Google Blog.


    This is called "First Click Free" and if traffic is coming from a Google referral such as http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=keyword here they MUST show the full content or rather exactly what they present to Googlebot.

    If not then it's cloaking, the site in this thread is not implementing FCF policies it's just outright cloaking.
     
    sweetfunny, Dec 28, 2008 IP
  19. maxerg

    maxerg Peon

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    #39
    I decided to not to reply anymore since all I get is bad reputation here. But you are misguiding people.

    The link you've provided for that 'First Click Free' is all about Google News publishers:

    http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?answer=40543&topic=11707

    EDIT: And clearly they don't refer it as cloaking, rather encourage you to do it:

    They clearly allow subcription sites and they want you to serve the full content only in the first click if you are a Google News Publisher.
     
    maxerg, Dec 28, 2008 IP
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  20. sweetfunny

    sweetfunny Banned

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    #40
    sweetfunny, Dec 28, 2008 IP
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