About Page Cloaking

Page cloaking takes many forms, and how it is incorporated into a
website makes a difference in how well it will be accepted by search
engines. While many SEO experts are adamant that page cloaking is a
definite no-go, the growth in web-based functionality increasingly
makes using page cloaking the most efficient method to get the
correct data to the right people.

If the page cloaking is being used to trick search engines,
presenting them with different content than would be displayed to
other users, it is safe to say that getting caught doing so will be
detrimental to your site. Search engines and their spiders are
looking for websites that provide quality material and display a
great deal of relevance throughout the site. By providing a relevant
website, there’s no reason to cloak pages from the prying electronic
eyes of spiders.

However, if your website displays content based on the type of web
browser a user has, page cloaking may be the most cost efficient
method, as it could allow you to only pass on the information
specific to that browser instead of using the bandwidth to transmit
all information and leaving the user-side browser to choose what it
can use.

Similarly, page cloaking can be useful for returning members of a
site, to bypass the opening page, for instance. Is the user being
referred from a site that offers a special deal when you click on the
link? Page cloaking can be used for this purpose as well. As you can
see, there are quite a few legitimate reasons for using page
cloaking.

Unfortunately, most people only seem to remember yesteryear, when
the act of cloaking a page was deceptive. Because of this, page
cloaking for any reason has become highly controversial. Many say the
any use of cloaking is detrimental to the site, as far as search
engines are concerned, and other say that if you have a legitimate
use for it, page cloaking if perfectly okay to do. Our advice is to
avoid page cloaking unless, and only if, there isn’t another
effective way to achieve the goal you have mind. And since there is
almost always another way to do something, page cloaking should be
used only on a very rare basis.

Article written by SEOnotepad.com