How often cloaking actually happens
We set out to show that pages ranking in grey niches cloak more often than pages ranking for ordinary brands. After 1,395 checks we could not show it — but two other differences came out clearly.
Serpward journal
Notes on search results, evidence and removal.
Long-form, written by the people filing the notices. No top-ten lists.
What is cloaking in SEO
A page is allowed to answer two requests differently. Cloaking is using that freedom to show the search engine one page and the person who clicks another.
Google and cloaking
Google names cloaking in its spam policies and treats it as deception rather than a technical error. What that means in practice for the site doing it, and for the brand it is done to.
Website cloaking, switch by switch
Every form of cloaking comes down to one decision made on the server: which visitor is this. Five things it can look at, and what each one takes to detect.
Why takedown notices fail quietly, and what a notice has to carry
Most rejected notices are not refused. They are simply never answered. The difference between the two is what was attached, and it can be listed.
One query, a different result page in every market
A search made in Berlin on a phone and the same search made in Almaty on a desktop are two different documents. Checking one of them says nothing about the other.
Cloaking: the page that shows the reviewer nothing
You report a page and are told there was nothing on it. There was. It was shown to the search engine and withheld from you, and the notice was closed as mistaken.
Capture first, file later
Evidence is usually gathered when someone sits down to write the notice. By then the page has had days to change. The capture belongs at the moment the page is found.
What an affiliate platform cannot see
The platform knows what a partner sent and what they were paid. It does not know what their page said, where it ranked, or whether it stood above you on your own name.