Search Engine Optimisation and Cloaking

[aManHasNoName]

Hey guys, I've been doing some research on different SEO methods to boost my page.

What are the best ways?
Also, can someone explain in a simple way what cloaking is? I've been trying to find a good explanation.

 

[Ian J]

Cloaking is a method first devised by the Romulans to hide their spaceships from the enemy

 

[fisicx]

Also, can someone explain in a simple way what cloaking is? I've been trying to find a good explanation.

Wasn't that difficult to find: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355?hl=en

 

[UKSBD]

Cloaking is basically returning different content for search engines than for visitors.

What muddies the waters a little is when you return different content dependent on the device
i.e. when you have different content/layouts for mobile or desktop.

Google like the content to be the same, so if you have a block of text on the top of the page that looks good on a desktop but not a mobile, Google still want the block of text on a mobile (even if it means moving it to the bottom of the page)

What's really going to complicate things is Google are moving towards mobile indexing 1st.
So if you have trimmed down versions of pages for mobile, it will be even more important to ensure the content is still on the page.

 

[Luc Durand]

To boost your SEO visibility you just need two things
A) Produce quality content that people want to read
B) Promote your content

I know it's very simplistic but it is by far the best approach.

 

[Matthew Gough]

Cloaking is a method first devised by the Romulans to hide their spaceships from the enemy

I knew it!

 

[RedundancyClaim]

What industry are you in?

 

[fisicx]

What industry are you in?

Probably not a Romulan - he would know what cloaking was if he were.

 

[webgeek]

He has no name, that means he must be...






MacBeth

 

[AB-Leadgen]

Be very careful if you're considering cloaking. The experts can make it work but most other people will fall foul of Google and get their sites penalised. It takes a huge amount of work to restore your rankings so, imho, it's not worth the risk.

SEO depends on numerous factors but the important ones are:

• number of links pointing to your site from authority sites
• quality of content on your site

Effective SEO takes time and effort. Google's alogrithms change regularly and out-smart many tactics that are created to enable a site to jump in rankings.

 

[Paul Ash]

Personally, I would advise against cloaking. Unless you are doing something a bit shady, why would you need to do that? Very simple to hide text that you would prefer not to be visible to website visitors without doing that.

 

[BDLtd]

Don't worry about cloaking. Dangerous and unnecessary.

Generate lots of relevant content on your site, submit some guest posts on other relevant blogs in your niche to get some quality backlinks.

SEO is predominantly content + links these days

 

[aManHasNoName]

Thanks for all of this great advice guys, especially like the answer about the romulans For those asking, I am in the automotive repair industry.
I was actually googling more about this and I came upo this article: https://www.1and1.com/digitalguide/online-marketing/search-engine-marketing/cloaking-a-seo-taboo/.
It's quite interesting how cloaking started as a legitimate technique, however people started abusing it and now it's viewed as a blackhat technique.

 

[Jackson Allan]

The good old days of cloaking! Definitely a no-no now. You don't need to do cloaking...just write good, quality, relevant articles that people want to share. There is of course the PBN (Private Blog Network) route to get backlinks, but that's kinda on the dark side too....works VERY well though if done right.