There are some SEO practices that are known as ‘Black hat SEO’. These are usually defined as being deceptive tactics used to gain inflated results through bad practices and, when identified by search engines, will cost you greatly. Google in particular will penalise you for such SEO methods as it goes against their search essentials (previously webmaster guidelines), and your website will no longer be displayed in the search results, making your visibility vanish.
We will be looking at two black hat methods that are sometimes used, and why you should avoid these, cloaking and sneaky redirects. So, let’s jump in, what is cloaking, and what are sneaky redirects in SEO?
Cloaking is a method where the content displayed on a website is different to what is displayed to search engines. There are different types of cloaking in SEO including user-agent, IP, hidden text and HTTP language. We will look at each of these to explain what each aims to do. Sneaky redirects display a link to users but then sending them to a completely different URL, it can be used by hackers to send users on different devices to different webpages.
Read on to learn more about cloaking in SEO and the practice of sneaky redirects and how to identify these.
Cloaking in SEO
Cloaking is defined as a tactic used to deceive the search engines. It does this by displaying content to them that is created to please the algorithm, while displaying other content to human users in their browser.
Types of Cloaking
There are many different types of cloaking, the most popular types we detail below.
IP Cloaking
IP cloaking is used where a website will serve different content to different users, depending on their IP address. So for example, a server that identifies the IP address of a search engine bot will provide content that is stuffed with more keywords. When the IP is not associated with a search engine it will provide a different version.
HTTP Accept-Language Cloaking
This is simply where the server will display different content to users based on the language preference set in their browser. It can be used to manipulate local search, showing different content to rank higher in different areas where they may not even serve users.
User-agent Cloaking
User-agent cloaking can identify the user-agent visiting the website, if this is a search engine it will be served more optimised content made purely for ranking whilst often serving users a page that is completely different or of poorer quality.
Hidden Text Cloaking
This is where a website will have more links and keywords written directly into the code of the website. So they are visible to web crawlers but not human website visitors. These are usually hidden from users by matching the font colour to the background, for example black text on a black background, or are sometimes hidden beneath images.
What Are the Consequences of Using Cloaking?
Due to the unethical nature of cloaking tactics if detected a website will be penalised for using these techniques. This can include:
- Large drop in rankings
- Removed from the search engine results pages
Recovering from these kinds of penalties can take a very long time, and it is more worthwhile spending your time on creating high quality content and following SEO best practices to grow your website than to try and out-smart the algorithm.
What Are Sneaky Redirects?
Sneaky redirects are a type of spam tactic typically used by hackers to send users to a webpage they were not looking for. They are used by those adopting black-hat SEO practices to deliver different content to users than to search engines and are not to be confused with regular redirects which are used in a transparent way.
Consequences of Using Sneaky Redirects?
As with cloaking, if your website is identified as having used sneaky redirects it will be removed from the search engine index and will not be displayed on the results pages. Your website will be penalised and it will take a long time to regain the trust of the search engines before you can begin to rank again.
Learn more about Google penalties and how they can impact your website in our recent blog.
How Do I Know the Agency I Choose is Using the Right SEO Practices?
Choose an agency who is transparent with you about their practices, and isn’t promising you results overnight, as SEO is a long-term strategy. Your agency should be transparent about the work they are going to complete for you and what impact they expect it to have. There are tools available to check for cloaking such as sitechecker. Redirects can be checked through tools such as Screaming frog and Sitebulb.
Build Your Website Presence Ethically With Wildcat Digital
Here at Wildcat our SEO experts follow only white-hat SEO practices, building your online presence with your users at the heart of your campaign. We follow Google’s search essentials guidelines to build trust and authority with both search engines and users, delivering helpful, high-quality content on solid technical SEO foundations. If you want to boost your online presence we have experts on SEO and PPC who can help you achieve your goals. Get in touch with us today!
Thea Chapman
SEO Account Manager
