Guidelines for
| Category: Search engines - Optimisation | Date: 2003-06-12 |
(Continued from Part 1. To receive the full version of this article, write to RobinN@acws.com)
Remember that because cloaking is somewhat "suspect" to the engines, make sure you walk a very straight line with your cloaked pages so that you dont send up any red flags.
John Heard offers this suggestion to anyone who is considering cloaking. "To avoid problems with search engines when using cloaking, dont submit anything that you wouldnt directly submit to the engines without the cloaking script. Its not made to hide spam pages and cannot hide spam from a search engine if they review the page."
3. Repeat after me: The engines want good, solid, unique content. So, when you create your cloaked pages, make sure that theyre "content-rich information" pages. Sorry for sounding like a broken record, but the more content you build into your site, the better off your site will be.
4. Cloaked Web pages should make perfect sense and be the equivalent of an article thats focused on a particular topic. Dont use "babble" programs that stuff keywords into strategic places on the page, so that the pages themselves make no sense at all.
5. Be careful when using software programs that generate Web pages. The engines dont like "machine generated pages." However, if you use a software program (like Page Generator of WebPosition Golds new 1.60 version)(http://www.webposition.com) that takes your unique content, your format, and simply puts them together into a page, thats fine.
6. Dont use a cloaked page to hide a competitors trademark or to hide content "stolen" from another site.
7. Whether using cloaking or not, make sure that you dont create too many pages that focus on the same keyword phrases. The engines have never liked Web sites that dominate the rankings.
8. Dont forget the basics! Just like you would on your regular pages, spend time researching your keywords through a service like WordTracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) or WordSpot (http://www.wordspot.com). Then, create an effective and captivating title and description for your page. Use META tags for the engines that consider them when determining relevancy, and be sure to use link text containing your important keyword phrase. Place keywords in ALT tags, headline tags, at the beginning of all tags and body text, etc. Dont overdo it in the keyword weight area.
For a very handy software program that will check your Web pages for you and offer suggestions, visit Search Engine Optimizer (GRSeo) at http://www.se-optimizer.com. Yes, this is an Academy product, and yes, this is blatant self-promotion. But, GRSeo is an excellent software program that will save you a bunch of time. Plus, the Generic Engine is an ideal starting place when youre creating cloaked pages.
Remember that cloaking doesnt guarantee you a top ranking. Cloaking simply allows you to compete, but you still have to work for that ranking. So, dont think that purchasing an expensive cloaking software or page generator tool will guarantee that your pages will always be in the top 10. Instead, concentrate on solid search engine marketing strategies--above-board strategies that you know work. Incorporate those strategies into your cloaked pages.
9. Be sure to link to all important pages on your site from your cloaked pages. Add links to external sites in your related topic area as well.
10. Buy cloaking software from a reputable company. The cloaking software itself isnt whats truly valuable. Rather, the constant updates to that software are whats valuable. So, choose a reputable company where you can be sure of getting updates as soon as a new spider is detected. Also, by going through a reputable company, you can be assured of getting customer support when needed.
Though there may be other excellent companies, three immediately come to mind:
John Heards IP-Delivery:
http://www.ip-delivery.com/foodscript
Fantomasters shadowSniperT:
http://fantomaster.com/fassniper0.html
Traffic Titan:
http://position-it.com/traffictitan/
11. Dont begin cloaking until you understand how to use the software and cloaking strategies in general. Many people jump into cloaking before they are ready, and their results reflect it. So, spend time learning the software and experimenting with creating cloaked pages.
12. If you use cloaking, dont think that you have to cloak everything. Cloak when needed! In other words, if your client is trying to compete in a highly competitive area, and if most of her competition is using cloaked pages, you may have to cloak in order for her to compete. Or, if your clients site is nothing but a Flash movie, cloaking may be your answer.
Can you think of other "responsible cloaking" guidelines that I failed to mention? If so, send them to me. Well continue to add new guidelines as time goes on.
In Conclusion . . .
Cloaking can be a highly effective strategy for allowing you to compete in the rankings if your site is in a competitive area or is using strategies that make it difficult to achieve top rankings otherwise. However, because its subject to abuse, you need to be very careful and make sure that you stay on the legitimate side of that notorious gray line.
And by the way, Paul, thanks for a great article idea!
About the Author
Robin Nobles is a freelance writer whose articles on surfing the Web are published in six newspapers regularly. She also writes articles about the Web and Internet in publications such as Internet Newsroom, InfoAlert, WebVantage, CompuNotes, ChipNET, The Sunshine Post, Bridges Initiatives, and more. She can be reached at robinsnest.com or through her website: Robins Nest for Writers and Web Surfers - robinsnest.com
robin@robinsnest.com
http://www.robinsnest.com
Remember that because cloaking is somewhat "suspect" to the engines, make sure you walk a very straight line with your cloaked pages so that you dont send up any red flags.
John Heard offers this suggestion to anyone who is considering cloaking. "To avoid problems with search engines when using cloaking, dont submit anything that you wouldnt directly submit to the engines without the cloaking script. Its not made to hide spam pages and cannot hide spam from a search engine if they review the page."
3. Repeat after me: The engines want good, solid, unique content. So, when you create your cloaked pages, make sure that theyre "content-rich information" pages. Sorry for sounding like a broken record, but the more content you build into your site, the better off your site will be.
4. Cloaked Web pages should make perfect sense and be the equivalent of an article thats focused on a particular topic. Dont use "babble" programs that stuff keywords into strategic places on the page, so that the pages themselves make no sense at all.
5. Be careful when using software programs that generate Web pages. The engines dont like "machine generated pages." However, if you use a software program (like Page Generator of WebPosition Golds new 1.60 version)(http://www.webposition.com) that takes your unique content, your format, and simply puts them together into a page, thats fine.
6. Dont use a cloaked page to hide a competitors trademark or to hide content "stolen" from another site.
7. Whether using cloaking or not, make sure that you dont create too many pages that focus on the same keyword phrases. The engines have never liked Web sites that dominate the rankings.
8. Dont forget the basics! Just like you would on your regular pages, spend time researching your keywords through a service like WordTracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) or WordSpot (http://www.wordspot.com). Then, create an effective and captivating title and description for your page. Use META tags for the engines that consider them when determining relevancy, and be sure to use link text containing your important keyword phrase. Place keywords in ALT tags, headline tags, at the beginning of all tags and body text, etc. Dont overdo it in the keyword weight area.
For a very handy software program that will check your Web pages for you and offer suggestions, visit Search Engine Optimizer (GRSeo) at http://www.se-optimizer.com. Yes, this is an Academy product, and yes, this is blatant self-promotion. But, GRSeo is an excellent software program that will save you a bunch of time. Plus, the Generic Engine is an ideal starting place when youre creating cloaked pages.
Remember that cloaking doesnt guarantee you a top ranking. Cloaking simply allows you to compete, but you still have to work for that ranking. So, dont think that purchasing an expensive cloaking software or page generator tool will guarantee that your pages will always be in the top 10. Instead, concentrate on solid search engine marketing strategies--above-board strategies that you know work. Incorporate those strategies into your cloaked pages.
9. Be sure to link to all important pages on your site from your cloaked pages. Add links to external sites in your related topic area as well.
10. Buy cloaking software from a reputable company. The cloaking software itself isnt whats truly valuable. Rather, the constant updates to that software are whats valuable. So, choose a reputable company where you can be sure of getting updates as soon as a new spider is detected. Also, by going through a reputable company, you can be assured of getting customer support when needed.
Though there may be other excellent companies, three immediately come to mind:
John Heards IP-Delivery:
http://www.ip-delivery.com/foodscript
Fantomasters shadowSniperT:
http://fantomaster.com/fassniper0.html
Traffic Titan:
http://position-it.com/traffictitan/
11. Dont begin cloaking until you understand how to use the software and cloaking strategies in general. Many people jump into cloaking before they are ready, and their results reflect it. So, spend time learning the software and experimenting with creating cloaked pages.
12. If you use cloaking, dont think that you have to cloak everything. Cloak when needed! In other words, if your client is trying to compete in a highly competitive area, and if most of her competition is using cloaked pages, you may have to cloak in order for her to compete. Or, if your clients site is nothing but a Flash movie, cloaking may be your answer.
Can you think of other "responsible cloaking" guidelines that I failed to mention? If so, send them to me. Well continue to add new guidelines as time goes on.
In Conclusion . . .
Cloaking can be a highly effective strategy for allowing you to compete in the rankings if your site is in a competitive area or is using strategies that make it difficult to achieve top rankings otherwise. However, because its subject to abuse, you need to be very careful and make sure that you stay on the legitimate side of that notorious gray line.
And by the way, Paul, thanks for a great article idea!
About the Author
Robin Nobles is a freelance writer whose articles on surfing the Web are published in six newspapers regularly. She also writes articles about the Web and Internet in publications such as Internet Newsroom, InfoAlert, WebVantage, CompuNotes, ChipNET, The Sunshine Post, Bridges Initiatives, and more. She can be reached at robinsnest.com or through her website: Robins Nest for Writers and Web Surfers - robinsnest.com
robin@robinsnest.com
http://www.robinsnest.com
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