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
-
Finding websites that don't have meta descriptions
Hi everyone, as a way to find new business leads I thought about targeting websites that have poor meta descriptions or where they are simply missing. A quick look at SERPs shows this is still a major issue for many businesses. Is there any way I can quickly find pages for which meta description is lacking? Thank you! Best regards, Florian
Technical SEO | | agencepicnic0 -
The use of tabs on productpages, do or don't?
Does google has any trouble reading content tabs? The content is not loaded by ajax and is already in the page source code.
Technical SEO | | wilcoXXL
As i'm checking some big e-commerce websites or (amazon.com for example) they get rid of the tabs with content and put the different content below eachother. Is his better for SEO purpose? But what about user experience? For users it think it is easier to navigate by tabs then to have a long page to scroll. What do you guys think about this issue?0 -
Javascript to manipulate Google's bounce rate and time on site?
I was referred to this "awesome" solution to high bounce rates. It is suppose to "fix" bounce rates and lower them through this simple script. When the bounce rate goes way down then rankings dramatically increase (interesting study but not my question). I don't know javascript but simply adding a script to the footer and watch everything fall into place seems a bit iffy to me. Can someone with experience in JS help me by explaining what this script does? I think it manipulates the reporting it does to GA but I'm not sure. It was supposed to be placed in the footer of the page and then sit back and watch the dollars fly in. 🙂
Technical SEO | | BenRWoodard1 -
What's the best way to solve this sites duplicate content issues?
Hi, The site is www.expressgolf.co.uk and is an e-commerce website with lots of categories and brands. I'm trying to achieve one single unique URL for each category / brand page to avoid duplicate content and to get the correct URL's indexed. Currently it looks like this... Main URL http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green Different Versions http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/ http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/1 http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/2 http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/3 http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/4 http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/all http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/1/ http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/2/ http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/3/ http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/4/ http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/all/ Firstly, what is the best course of action to make all versions point to the main URL and keep them from being indexed - Canonical Tag, NOINDEX or block them in robots? Secondly, do I just need to 301 the (/) from all URL's to the non (/) URL's ? I'm sure this question has been answered but I was having trouble coming to a solution for this one site. Cheers, Paul
Technical SEO | | paulmalin0 -
I'm getting a Duplicate Content error in my Pro Dashboard for 2 versions of my Homepage. What is the best way to handle this issue?
Hi SEOMoz,I am trying to fix the final issues in my site crawl. One that confuses me is this canonical homepage URL fix. It says I have duplicate content on the following pages:http://www.accupos.com/http://www.accupos.com/index.phpWhat would be the best way to fix this problem? (...the first URL has a higher page authority by 10 points and 100+ more inbound links).Respectfully Yours,Derek M.
Technical SEO | | DerekM880 -
Site: search doesn't return homepage first
When searching for site:myclient.com their homepage doesn't appear first. I know some SEOs have reported this was a warning sign that there was a penalty. Here is what I've checked/found: Toolbar pagerank remains strong. Homepage is indexed. SEO traffic is falling, but its been gradually falling for a year now, mainly due to the client neglecting any type of marketing campaigns or link building, I believe. There was not a specific drop that could be tied to a penalty. Site remains well indexed. 62,742 of 63,021 URLs in the sitemap are indexed. Site is a large ecommerce site, so many pages are duplicate content (product descriptions). Homepage does rank #1 when searching for string of text present on the homepage. Nothing unusual in Google Webmaster Tools Search for myclient.com returns homepage with 6 expanded sitelinks under it. Google safe browsing check shows no malware. Anything else I should check?
Technical SEO | | AdamThompson0 -
Should I use a "-", ":", or "|" in the title tag?
Out of habit, I've always put a "-" or dash to separate items in the title tag. However, I've noticed that more and more sites are using either a ":" or "|" in the title. Is there one that is better to use than the other?
Technical SEO | | beeneeb0 -
Honeypot Captcha - rated as "cloaked content"?
Hi guys, in order to get rid of our very old-school captcha on our contact form at troteclaser.com, we would like to use a honeypot captcha. The idea is to add a field that is hidden to human visitors but likely to be filled in by spam-bots. In this way we can sort our all those spam contact requests.
Technical SEO | | Troteclaser
More details on "honeypot captchas":
http://haacked.com/archive/2007/09/11/honeypot-captcha.aspx Any idea if this single cloaked field will have negative SEO-impacts? Or is there another alternative to keep out those spam-bots? Greets from Austria,
Thomas0