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
-
No: 'noindex' detected in 'robots' meta tag
I'm getting an error in Search Console that pages on my site show No: 'noindex' detected in 'robots' meta tag. However, when I inspect the pages html, it does not show noindex. In fact, it shows index, follow. Majority of pages show the error and are not indexed by Google...Not sure why this is happening. Unfortunately I can't post images on here but I've linked some url's below. The page below in search console shows the error above... https://mixeddigitaleduconsulting.com/ As does this one. https://mixeddigitaleduconsulting.com/independent-school-marketing-communications/ However, this page does not have the error and is indexed by Google. The meta robots tag looks identical. https://mixeddigitaleduconsulting.com/blog/leadership-team/jill-goodman/ Any and all help is appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Sean_White_Consult0 -
Ranking penalty for "accordion" content -- hidden prior to user interaction
Will content inside an "accordion" module be ranked as non-hidden content? Is there an official guide by google and other search engines addressing this? Example of accordion element: https://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/components/collapse/#accordion-example Will all elements in the example above be seen + treated equally by search engines?
Technical SEO | | houlihanlokey1 -
301'd site, but new site is not getting picked up in google.
Hi I'm having big issues! Any help would be greatly appreciated This is the 3rd time this happened. Every time I switch my old site greatcleanjokes.com to the new design of chokeonajoke.com traffic goes almost completely down (I even tried out the new design on greatcleanjokes [to see if it was a 301 issue] and traffic also went down.) What can possibly be wrong with this new site that google just doesn't like it ?! I was ranking high up for many big phrase like joke of the day, corny jokes, clean jokes, short jokes. Now It's all gone. I also think it's strange that when I search for site:chokeonajoke.com the post pages show up before the category pages!? Here is the old site http://web.archive.org/web/20140406214615/http://www.greatcleanjokes.com/ Here is the new one http://chokeonajoke.com/ If you can't figure out anything do you know of anyone I can hire who may be able to figure it out?
Technical SEO | | Nickys22111 -
What to do with "show all" page
Hello, What should I do with the following situation: In e-commerce shop I have an option to "show all products" (list all products in one page) - do I need to put canonnical or 301 redirect to somewhere or should I leave as normal page - I think google consider this is as duplicate since everything is the same (only number of products is different) ? Regards, Nenad
Technical SEO | | Uniline0 -
Adding academic content for a school in a sub folder, sub domain, or different site?
I manage the website for a school and we are planning to put our academic policies/student handbook online. I’m curious if there is any SEO value to including this content in our main website? This isn’t stuff that anyone is going to link to externally (student orientation procedures, how to enroll/drop credits, academic warning policies etc) and there would be limited internal linking as well (someone looking for course information doesn’t want to see this type of stuff). I’m not interested in SERPs for this content, but I’m wondering if the additional content could help the site’s SEO overall? It is naturally rich with ‘academic’ keywords and the only websites that use this type of content are universities. On a similar note, I need to put up student profiles for potential employers to view. Like the policies, this is not priority content for someone visiting our website, but it is still keyword-rich content, which would add to the overall 'size' of the site. Should this stuff go in a folder, a subdomain, or in a different location altogether?
Technical SEO | | AISFM0 -
I have 404 errors but can't find where these links are?
The 4xx report had 0 errors, and then on the recent crawl it found over 200. They are all variations on real URLs e.g.: Real URL: http://www.bullseyeuk.com/10-up-deluxe-literature-holder.html 404 Error URL: http://www.bullseyeuk.com/10-up-deluxe-literature-holder.html �� None of them are linked to the root domain and I can't find where they are coming from. Any ideas? Thanks Jack
Technical SEO | | JackMurphy0 -
Pictures 'being stolen'
Helping my wife with ecommerce site. Selling clothes. Some photos are given by producer, but at times they are not too good. Some are therefore taking their own photos and i suspect ppl are copying them and using them on their own site. Is there anyting to do about this - watermarking of course, but can they be 'marked' in anyway linking to your site ?
Technical SEO | | danlae0 -
Destination URL in SERPs keeps changing and I can't work out why.. Help.
I am befuddled as to why our destination URL in SERPs keeps changing oak furniture was nicely returning http://www.thefurnituremarket.co.uk/oakfurniture.asp then I changed something yesterday I did 2 things. published a link to that on facebook as part of a competition. redirected dynamic pages to the static URL for oak furniture.. Now for oak furniture the SERPs in GG UK is returning our home page as the most relevant landing page.. Any Idea why? I'm leaning to an onpage issue than posting on FB.. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | robertrRSwalters0