Comments on: What is good for the searcher is good for the search engine http://blog.hodgsonmeyers.com/2009/10/21/what-is-good-for-the-searcher-is-good-for-the-search-engine/ Spike Speak Wed, 04 May 2011 14:58:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Robert Coats http://blog.hodgsonmeyers.com/2009/10/21/what-is-good-for-the-searcher-is-good-for-the-search-engine/comment-page-1/#comment-42 Robert Coats Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:53:21 +0000 http://blog.hodgsonmeyers.com/?p=279#comment-42 Hi Sue. Great question. "Cloaking" is when a website provides certain content to the search engine spiders for indexing but then provides different content to a human viewing the website. Think of it as "bait and switch" with the content. Some websites attempt to do this so that they can get traffic from the search engines on really popular search terms and then send that traffic to a web page that is about something that is less popular. While the content might have appeared relevant to the search engine spider, to the human it wasn't. Suffice to say, it creates a poor user experience and likely will not generate many leads or conversions for the website. Additionally, it is a technique that will get the website banned from the search engines, when they realize that cloaking has been involved. So why would a website owner or business do this? Often times, the business owner didn't even realize that cloaking techniques had been applied to their website. They simply hired some company that promised that they could generate them a lot of search traffic in short order with some mystical sounding "black-hat" techniques. By the time the business owner realizes that all of the traffic their website is getting is for Miley Cyrus it's too late and then ALL traffic stops as the website is dropped from the search engines, entirely. The company that they had hired to generate the search traffic has now cashed the check and are long gone. So how could the business have avoided this situation? By working with a well established agency that would work closely with the business to ensure that higher goals than just "generate traffic" were in place. A good agency will ensure that the website uses compelling content that is relevant to both the search engine and the searcher. This will provide a foundation for the website to achieve long term rankings in the search result pages for relevant search terms. This in-turn will generate the kind of traffic that converts for the business and achieves the long-term business goals. Now that's relevant. -Robert Hi Sue. Great question.

“Cloaking” is when a website provides certain content to the search engine spiders for indexing but then provides different content to a human viewing the website. Think of it as “bait and switch” with the content.

Some websites attempt to do this so that they can get traffic from the search engines on really popular search terms and then send that traffic to a web page that is about something that is less popular. While the content might have appeared relevant to the search engine spider, to the human it wasn’t.

Suffice to say, it creates a poor user experience and likely will not generate many leads or conversions for the website. Additionally, it is a technique that will get the website banned from the search engines, when they realize that cloaking has been involved.

So why would a website owner or business do this? Often times, the business owner didn’t even realize that cloaking techniques had been applied to their website. They simply hired some company that promised that they could generate them a lot of search traffic in short order with some mystical sounding “black-hat” techniques. By the time the business owner realizes that all of the traffic their website is getting is for Miley Cyrus it’s too late and then ALL traffic stops as the website is dropped from the search engines, entirely. The company that they had hired to generate the search traffic has now cashed the check and are long gone.

So how could the business have avoided this situation? By working with a well established agency that would work closely with the business to ensure that higher goals than just “generate traffic” were in place.

A good agency will ensure that the website uses compelling content that is relevant to both the search engine and the searcher. This will provide a foundation for the website to achieve long term rankings in the search result pages for relevant search terms. This in-turn will generate the kind of traffic that converts for the business and achieves the long-term business goals. Now that’s relevant.
-Robert

]]> By: Sue http://blog.hodgsonmeyers.com/2009/10/21/what-is-good-for-the-searcher-is-good-for-the-search-engine/comment-page-1/#comment-39 Sue Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:05:59 +0000 http://blog.hodgsonmeyers.com/?p=279#comment-39 what does cloaking mean? Thanks, Sue what does cloaking mean?

Thanks,
Sue

]]> By: Tweets that mention What is good for the searcher is good for the search engine | Hodgson/Meyers -- Topsy.com http://blog.hodgsonmeyers.com/2009/10/21/what-is-good-for-the-searcher-is-good-for-the-search-engine/comment-page-1/#comment-33 Tweets that mention What is good for the searcher is good for the search engine | Hodgson/Meyers -- Topsy.com Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:09:13 +0000 http://blog.hodgsonmeyers.com/?p=279#comment-33 [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Liz Wagner, Robert Coats. Robert Coats said: Thanks for the tweet Liz! RT @lizwagner What's the Key to a Strong SEM Campaign? @roibert knows - http://bit.ly/31vlJG #sem #search #seo [...] [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Liz Wagner, Robert Coats. Robert Coats said: Thanks for the tweet Liz! RT @lizwagner What's the Key to a Strong SEM Campaign? @roibert knows – http://bit.ly/31vlJG #sem #search #seo [...]

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