Showing Different Content To Members & Non-Members/Google and Cloaking Risk

[94501]

How do we safely show logged-in members/Google one type of content on a page and logged out/non-members another kind of content without getting slammed for cloaking?

Right now we do this thing where we show Google everything on the page, but new visitors partial forum comments with the pitch to sign up and see full comments. So far, we have not gotten into trouble for this.

The new idea is to show non-members a lot of marketing messages and one kind of navigation and then once they sign up and are logged in, show different or no marketing messages and a different kind of navigation.

How do we stay out of trouble with this? Where is the cloaking line drawn? It's got me kinda nervous.

Thanks... Darcy

[DirkC]

Hi Darcy,

When people click on the results in Google  - do they see the normal page (the one that Googlebot saw) or the version for the "new" users. If it's the second case - you are indeed cloaking according to Google's definition (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355).

If you're listed in Google News - you could participate in "First Click Free" (https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/40543?hl=en) - which basically allows you to hide your content behind a registration wall but still be indexed as long as you provide at least 5 pages (articles) /day

Not all participants to First Click Free are playing according to the rules (http://searchengineland.com/google-fails-enforce-first-click-free-203078) - but I guess your site isn't the Financial times.

You could continue what you're doing now, but you certainly run the risk of a penalty in my opinion

rgds,

Dirk

[94501]

Hi Dirk,

Thanks for the response. Folks out of Google do not see the full page that Google saw. They see a snippet of comments and a pitch to log in or register to see full comments (in a forum). They don't see different content right now... they see less content, but the same as Google saw. Is that clearer?

Thanks... Darcy

[DirkC]

Hi Darcy,

If you apply the strict definition of Google, you are "inserting text or keywords into a page only when the User-agent requesting the page is a search engine, not a human visitor" - even if you don't do it with the intention to trick search engines (the inserted text = text which is invisible for non-registered users).

Is there a way to show the same content to both bots & humans, and still keeping the page

• attractive enough for search engines
• teasing enough for humans to register

It's difficult to guess the level of risk you're running - but once penalised, traffic drop is huge & recovery takes normally a long time (with no guarantee of full recovery)

rgds

Dirk

[MarieHaynes]

I agree with Dirk.  This sounds like cloaking.  It would be best to only show Google the content that non-members can see.

If you show Google content that a non-member can't see, then this is cloaking and could get you penalized.  But, even if it doesn't get you penalized, it's possible it could get you into Panda trouble.  Let's say I am searching for something and I see a Google result that shows me that your site has the answer to my query. I click on your site and realize that I can only see this content if I'm a member.  I don't want to become a member, so I click away and find another site to read.  If enough users do this, then this is a signal to Google (and likely to Panda) that readers don't like your site.

[DirkC]

Hi Marie

Couldn't resist to like this - I noticed that you were only missing one like to reach the Moz Walhalla...

Congrats,

Dirk

[MarieHaynes]

Wow...I didn't know this!  Thanks Dirk for putting me in the 5000 Moz points club!