Cloaking

Cloaking refers to the practice of showing different content to search engine spiders when they visit your site than users would normally see.

Link Cloaking:
Link Cloaking means disguising a link so that it doesn't display the actual URL to which the visitor is sent when he clicks on the link.

Link cloaking or masking is the technique of hiding the true destination of a hyperlink. This is done to improve CTR as visitors may feel more comfortable clicking on a friendly-looking link.

Cloaking
In terms of search engine marketing, this is the act of getting a search engine to record content for a URL that is different than what a searcher will ultimately see. It can be done in many technical ways.

Cloaking
Cloaking is the presentation of alternative pages to a search engine Spider so that it will record different content for a URL than what a human browser would see.

Cloaking
The process of delivering custom content to a search engine spider that is hidden from site visitors. With cloaking, search engine spiders see one page, and visitors view another page with different content.
Clustering ...

Cloaking - this involves hiding content on a page, by presenting one page to the Search Engines, but a different page to other users.

Cloaking- Showing a search engine spider or bot one version of a Web page and a different version to the end user. Several search engines have explicit rules against unapproved cloaking.

Cloaking: Hiding of page content or affiliate linking code.
Commission: Also known as a bounty or referral fee, the income an affiliate is paid for generating a sale, lead or click-through to a merchant's web site.

Cloaking
A technique that shows keyword stuffed pages to a search engine, but a real page to a human user.
Clustering
In search engine search results pages, clustering is limiting each represented website to one or two listings.

Cloaking: A deceptive process that sends search engine spiders to alternative pages that are not seen by the end user.

Cloaking
Cloaking describes the technique of serving a different page to a search engine spider than what a human visitor sees. This technique is abused by spammers for keyword stuffing.

Cloaking - Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to users than is presented to search engines. For example, serving a page of HTML text to search engines, while showing a page of images or Flash to users.

Cloaking - Displaying different content to search engines and searchers.

Link Cloaking: A technique that hides the real destination of a link.
Link Farm: A website setup used create links to other sites to improve their search engine rankings.

Cloaking is considered deceptive, especially when used in conjunction with another dark-art SEO tactic, keyword stuffing. Take a second look at the titles used on the two example pages listed above.

Cloaking - The process by which a web site can display different versions of a web page under different circumstances. It is primarily used to show an optimized or a content-rich page to the search engines and a different page to humans.

Cloaking has many legitimate uses which are within search guidelines. For example, changing user experience based on location is common on many popular websites.
See also: ...

For people with the time and expertise, cloaking is one way to protect your source code. Like most tools, cloaking can be used for wrongdoing, but also for legitimate purposes. Using cloaking to protect your source code is a preventative measure.

Desperately Seeking Search Engine Marketing Standards
BruceClay.com Emerging Standards
White Paper: Relevancy, Spam, Technology, Cloaking and Ranking
To Cloak or Not to Cloak
Cloaking: Search Engines Shift Gears ...

- Cloaking, delivering different pages depending on the IP address and/or agent who is requesting it
- Doorway / Gateway / Jump Pages
- Duplicate content taken from other sites
- Auto-generated content of no value to the end user ...

Practices that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines like link-farms, keyword stuffing or cloaking.

Popular online billing and marketing service for the development of affiliate programs, and the largest distributor of digital information products on the Internet. Known for its ease-of-use.
Cloaking: Hiding of page content or affiliate linking ...

See also: Search engine, Market, Marketing, Click, Place