Is this Link Black Hat SEO Cloaking or is it OK?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

One thing to note:

"I want to do my business above board and this doesn't feel right."

If it doesn't feel right, it's not right, especially in SEO. That's just something to live your life by - if it doesn't feel right, don't do it.

If it were me, I would change this. Not only does this not add any value whatsoever, but I would consider this a form of cloaking, even if it is relatively the same content. To be sure, I would use the Fetch as Google tool to make sure. But even then, lose it and create a good user experience by not having that.

I just would get rid of it, and play safe with good content on your homepage.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

[TimHolmes]

Absolutely agree with Patrick, if it does not feel right and you feel uncomfortable/spammy in doing it then don't.

Always opt for a strategy that is open, clear and provides your end users with a genuine experience.

[gdavey]

Hi Patrick,

Thanks a ton.

I appreciate your help in telling me to follow my gut. It's definitely what I am close to doing.

The apparent value that I am told it does is it gets the site indexed quickly. I am using another partner who is implementing this program for me. They assure me that it is legal and valuable. I am not so sure and not technically savvy enough to know if they are telling me the truth.

Thanks it does make sense and I'll take that into consideration.

I appreciate the feedback Patrick.

Gary

[gdavey]

Thanks Tim.

To be clearer, I have another company that has sold me on the program and once I found out it was potentially cloaking then I didn't want anything to do with it. They are now assuring me that it is above board and that the pages are driving leads. I still don't think the end justifies the means.

Thanks,

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I'm surprised to see a site like that these days - especially with Google being so hot on best practice matters.

Imagine you are one of Google manual site inspectors - what would you think if you saw that? I am pretty sure it wouldn't be anything good.

**...when really it just looks like cloaking. **

That's exactly what it is. No good can come from trying to hide page content in this manner.

There is nothing on this page / site that would inspire trust, and if you have no trust, you have no business. Scroll down the page and there is a huge white space.

Think user experience.

It sounds to me like you might have already made your mind up on this and just want clarification, so I hope you decide to move away from this and create an exiting site that is going to help bring conversions.

-Andy

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi Gary

No problem, I am happy to help where I can!

Another thing - "The apparent value that I am told it does is it gets the site indexed quickly. I am using another partner who is implementing this program for me. They assure me that it is legal and valuable." Pew.

Trust your gut, man. If you're just starting out and you're seeing stuff that doesn't feel right, that's great intuition to have and will get you far in helping your clients out. Sadly, a LOT of people in this industry take the other road and get a lot of people/companies burned in the process.

You're going to do great, just keep following your instincts and learning as much as you can!

Now go school those other guys

Good luck!

[gdavey]

Hi Andy,

Yes. I have made up my mind. It's not a practice I want to be involved with, promote or use. I am looking for other professional opinions to re-inforce my belief that this is wrong. I am moving my customer away from practices like this and I am separating myself from this partner.

It comes down to my "noob" experience with this type of work. I needed affirmation from professionals and experts who tell me that this is clearly wrong. All I had to go on was my gutt and my limited knowledge.

Thanks for chiming in and giving me your opinion. It's appreciated!

Gary

[Highland]

First off, let me commend you for asking questions. Too many people hand their website (and thus their brand) to someone else and then walk away. Nobody will care about your website like you do.

Second, you've got far greater problems than cloaking. Head over to SEO browser and put your URL in and click the Simple View button. Not only is it cloaking, the page the robot sees is filled with keyword stuffing. This is an actual paragraph on the page being fed to bots (emphasis mine because it's both hilarious and sad)

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Seriously, it's like someone found the worst SEO manual from 2005 and ran with it. I've not seen SEO this bad in YEARS. Your website, as it is running, is a walking and talking example of what NOT to do with SEO. Panda was built to find sites like this and penalize them. At this point, if I were you, I'd go get a Wordpress blog, write a few content pages and point your domain at it. You literally cannot do worse than your current site.

[gdavey]

Hi Highland,

Thanks. for the feedback. I do want to ask the question to learn and to grow. I have partnered with a company who has sold me on this tactic as white hat and lead gen. It is obviously neither. Pretty crazy.

I have done the Google Chrome, inspect element and removed the overlay iFrame to see what the page is serving the Google bots compared to the end overlay is to the end user.

Again, it's just a little over my head on these types of practices. I am more of a content marketing grow your brand type of professional and I bought into my partners "tactic" thinking it was safe. Before  now I didn't even know what cloaking was.

Thanks for the feedback.

Gary

[gdavey]

Thanks Patrick.

Appreciate the encouragement. I will provide a service that is above board and ethical. I know that there is a lot of interpretation on things and I would rather take the high road then get stuck in the mud over a few successful, short term leads.

I am going to get back to the "other" guys and challenge them on their practice and try to encourage them to change practices. Doesn't matter what their response is, just my actions.

Thanks again. Really appreciate it.

Gary