Different version of site for "users" who don't accept cookies considered cloaking?
-
Hi
I've got a client with lots of content that is hidden behind a registration form - if you don't fill it out you can not proceed to the content. As a result it is not being indexed. No surprises there.
They are only doing this because they feel it is the best way of capturing email addresses, rather than the fact that they need to "protect" the content.
Currently users arriving on the site will be redirected to the form if they have not had a "this user is registered" cookie set previously. If the cookie is set then they aren't redirected and get to see the content.
I am considering changing this logic to only redirecting users to the form if they accept cookies but haven't got the "this user is registered cookie". The idea being that search engines would then not be redirected and would index the full site, not the dead end form.
From the clients perspective this would mean only very free non-registered visitors would "avoid" the form, yet search engines are arguably not being treated as a special case.
So my question is: would this be considered cloaking/put the site at risk in any way?
(They would prefer to not go down the First Click Free route as this will lower their email sign-ups.)
Thank you!
-
Yeah - that would work. Well it should work if done the right way.
-
I'm thinking that a javascript pop-up might achieve the same result and be lower risk, especially if the indexed content is visible underneath the pop-up
-
Hi,
You can actually cap FCF at X number of visits per user per day by dropping a cookie. Otherwise what you are proposing is potentially a bit dodgy - if a human tester visits the site and gets a different experience to the bot, you might be at risk. I dbout you will get found out but at the same time, if you want to go pure white hat, then you need to follow the rules. Your call really.
A
-
Hi. Thanks but I don't want to use FCF if I can help it.
-
You can also use Google First Click Free to let it index the site - really easy to set up the run. I suggest you use this, I did it at a previous company and it works so well it's not funny.
More info here:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/10/first-click-free-for-web-search.html
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What's the best way for users to upload their images to my wordpress site to promote UGC
I have looked at lots of different plugins and wanted a recommendation for an easy way for patients of ours to upload pictures of them out partying and having fun and looking beautiful so future users can see the final results instead of sometimes gory or difficult to understand before and after images. I'd like to give them the opportunity to write captions (like facebook or insta posts and would offer them incentives to do so. I don't want it to be too complicated for them or have too many steps or barriers but I do want it to look nice and slick and modern. Also do you think this would have a positive impact on SEO? I was also thinking of a Q&A app where dentists could get Q&A emails and respond - i've been doing AMA sessions and they've been really successful and I would like to bring it into out site and make it native. Thanks in advance 🙂
Technical SEO | | Smileworks_Liverpool1 -
Why don't sites using Drupal have keywords
Why don't the vast majority of sites using Drupal list keywords in the head section? Is there another convention used in Drupal that serves the same purpose for SEO? I noticed most of the Drupal info pages about keywords seem to drop off around 2010
Technical SEO | | fxarechiga0 -
Do you still loose 15% of value of inbound links when you redirect your site from http to https (so all inbound links to http are being redirected to https version)?
I know when you redesign your on website, you loose about 15% internally due to the 301 redirects (see moz article: https://moz.com/blog/accidental-seo-tests-how-301-redirects-are-likely-impacting-your-brand), but I'm wondering if that also applies to value of inbound links when you redirect your http://www.sitename.com to https://www.sitename.com. I appreciate your help!
Technical SEO | | JBMediaGroup0 -
Content Based on User's IP Address
Hello, A client wants us to create a page on two different sites (www.brandA.com/content and www.brandB.com/content) with similar content and serve up specific content to users based on their IP addresses. The idea is that once a user gets to the page, the content would slightly change (mainly contact information and headers) based on their location. The problem I am seeing with this is that both brandA and brandB would be different Urls so there is a chance if their both optimized for the similar terms then they would both rank and crowd up the search results (duplicate content). Have you seen something similar? What are your thoughts and/or potential solutions? Also, do you know of any sites that are currently doing something similar?
Technical SEO | | Rauxa0 -
"Links to your site" in google webmaster tools not showing any data
Hello All I have a very strange query regarding the "Links to your site" section in webmaster's account my account does not show the Link data after so many days (more then 30 days) of verification. Can you please help me out how can I get my data in the webmaster's account?
Technical SEO | | barnesdorf
Please note I have verified the account using Google Analytic verification process. (does this affect?) I have seen this issue in my two websites which I have verified by Google Analytics. Please help me out.0 -
Duplicate page errors from pages don't even exist
Hi, I am having this issue within SEOmoz's Crawl Diagnosis report. There are a lot of crawl errors happening with pages don't even exist. My website has around 40-50 pages but SEO report shows that 375 pages have been crawled. My guess is that the errors have something to do with my recent htaccess configuration. I recently configured my htaccess to add trailing slash at the end of URLs. There is no internal linking issue such as infinite loop when navigating the website but the looping is reported in the SEOmoz's report. Here is an example of a reported link: http://www.mywebsite.com/Door/Doors/GlassNow-Services/GlassNow-Services/Glass-Compliance-Audit/GlassNow-Services/GlassNow-Services/Glass-Compliance-Audit/ btw there is no issue such as crawl error in my Google webmaster tool. Any help appreciated
Technical SEO | | mmoezzi0 -
OSE says URL redirects to URL with trailing slash but it doesn't.
Site is www.example.com/folder/us and OSE says this URL redirects to www.example.com/folder/us/, but it does not. When I look at the OSE report for the latter version with the "/" it says "No Data Available For This URL". Why would that be? The original URL is www.example.com and it redirects to www.example.com/folder/us. Is this anything I need to worry about? I thought that the trailing / doesn't really mean much anymore but nonetheless, why does it think it redirects there?
Technical SEO | | rock220 -
Why are Google search results different if you are log'd into Google or not?
I get different results when I'm log'd into my Google account associated with my website than if I'm not. The same country is occurring. So how can I rely on the google results I'm seeing? For instance my site is page 1 with the improvements I made based on SEOMOZ if I'm log'd in. Yet I'm not on the first 25 pages if I'm not logged in.
Technical SEO | | Romana0