17 replies to this topic

[Exalibur]

Good Morning!

This morning I heard about a web development firm that claims that they can shield what was done for SEO from a client firm's competitors. I assume that they hide the source. Additionally, they claim that they send bogus information to further lead competitors astray. It is supposed to not interfere with SE spiders.

Does this sound reasonable? Or, is it bogus marketing hype in itself.

[Matt B]

Just sounds like they have something to hide. Make your own implications there . . .

IMO, good SEO is also good usability, it really doesn't make much sense to hide it. SEO isn't rocket science, and hiding SEO code these days isn't much of an issue, if any at all. The only reason for hiding anything would most likely be some hardcore cloaking, IMO. They would probably be more concerned about competitors in the cloaking business getting access to their code, rather then the actual business competitors.

[Scottie]

Someone recently told me they were upset because their meta tags and title were copied by a competitor, who was now #2 for the search term. (Not a very competitive term)

The thing is, the competitor will never have the links or content that this site has... as things heat up in that arena, the competitor will fall in the ranks unless they really work for that position. But the main site will likely hold the #1 spot sor a very long time as they continue to build additional content and get good links in.

Someone is always going to be #2. :doh: There is a lot more to SEO than metatags and adding a few keywords, IMO.

Welcome excalibur!

[Jill]

It's called cloaking, and it's frowned upon by the engines. Most specifically, Google.

If it is used, the site runs a very real risk of being penalized or banned altogether from the search engines.

Please read this article for more info: Why Cloaking is Always a Bad Idea.

Oh, and welcome, Excalibur!

Jill

[Bernard]

If a spider can read it, anyone can.

Hiding HTML Source... NOT

[peter_d]

If a spider can read it, anyone can.

Not quite.

IP delivery requires that you originate from a specific IP address in order to view the cloaked content.

[dragonlady7]

Hm. I wonder if there's anyone at Google (or other SEs) who occasionally surfs from the IP address their spider uses, to see what the spider actually sees...
They probably have other, more efficient ways of handling that.

[Exalibur]

Good Morning All.

Thank you for the welcome, Jill and Scottie.

Thank you for the the feedback. Particularly, as it often is, knowing what to do is easy. Actually rolling you your sleeves and DOING is more rare. So, what competitors find out by looking at your site probably won't hurt much. If they were that ambitious, they will find out the "secrets" themselves...probably from highrankings.com

Jill, on the cloaking. I read the definition before I posted. My understanding is that cloaking is providing the SEs alternate content not seen by normal viewers to jack up SE positions. My question was about just hiding SEO things (I don't know what) from curious competitors, but what the browser and SEs see would be the same.

BTW, it really is Exalibur with no c. I bought a new computer in the mid-nineties (am I dating myself?) and was signing up for my first internet service. Excalibur was my product line so I choose that as my name. I was unaware that my brand new key board had an intermitent "c" key and typed excalibur wrong two times in a row. I have kept exalibur ever since. It always is available. No one else wants it!

All the best,

J

[Jill]

My question was about just hiding SEO things (I don't know what) from curious competitors, but what the browser and SEs see would be the same.

I'm not sure that's possible, is it? If the competitor can't see the code, how can the search engine spider?

Interesting story about the Exalibur name!

Jill

[peter_d]

I'm not sure that's possible, is it? If the competitor can't see the code, how can the search engine spider?

With IP based cloaking, the script checks the incoming IP address against a known list of search engine spiders. Here's an example. Just like you, spiders have IP address'.

If the address is a spider, the cloaking script provides a different set of pages than a user sees. For a competitior to see the cloaked page, s/he would need to fake their IP address.

[Jill]

But that's what I'm saying, Peter. You can't do what exalibur is talking about without cloaking.

He said:

My question was about just hiding SEO things (I don't know what) from curious competitors, but what the browser and SEs see would be the same.

And I believe you can only do that through cloaking, right?

Jill

[peter_d]

Perhaps I misunderstood the post.

And I believe you can only do that through cloaking, right?

Yes. The only (reliable) way I can think of differentiating a spider vs user is by IP. Too easy to fake an agent.

If they're doing it some other way, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

[Alan Perkins]

Hm. I wonder if there's anyone at Google (or other SEs) who occasionally surfs from the IP address their spider uses, to see what the spider actually sees.

Yes, more than one person.

They probably have other, more efficient ways of handling that.

Another way is those "Cached" links they provide in the SERPs, allowing anyone to see what the spider saw.

My question was about just hiding SEO things (I don't know what) from curious competitors, but what the browser and SEs see would be the same.

That is impossible. Either it's not hidden, or what the browser and SEs see is not the same.

[Exalibur]

Alan,

I agree it sounds "impossible". But, I have met few things related to computers and the net that actually turned out to be impossible.

Maybe this is...for now

Have a good evening,

J

[Alan Perkins]

I agree it sounds "impossible". But, I have met few things related to computers and the net that actually turned out to be impossible.

This is more to do with logic. IMO you posted a contradiction.