Hello there, I was going through How Webmasters Cloak content. A very popular Ecommerce Store namely JCrew also cloaks content on the homepage, but still ranks well on Search Engines and are not BANNED. Ref: http://seowhistleblower.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/j-crew-is-hiding-relevant-content/ Why do I see many SEO Experts telling you not to cloak content and there are still some popular Online Companies who have flashy homepage and cloak content? I had like to hear expert comments on this. Thanks, Hemanth
These SEO Experts all have different opinions on what can and can't be done based on their experiences. Honestly, there isn't THAT much we can know about SEO (unless you've designed the algorithm that each search engine uses) so we have to venture guesses. The guess here is that Google doesn't like it when you cloak content to try and rank for certain keywords because it feels deceived so if its picks up visibility: hidden, or display: none tags, there is a chance (and a slight one at that) that they will get in touch with you about changing your website up -- I personally know someone that was contacted and told that his website would be removed for 30 days until the issue was corrected.