4eyes - 5:59 pm on May 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

It would seem foolish for them to use any IP associated directly with them.

Clearly you think they cannot check automatically, and I am unable to shake this belief, but automatic checking is not the main threat.

The main threat is being 'turned-in' by your competitors and triggering a manual inspection. People will 'turn you in' for cloaking just because you are above them and they don't know how you did it.

Cloaking a site maybe OK for short term gain, but if I am investing time and money in building link popularity etc, I don't want to risk losing that by using cloaking and getting caught.

Sure, cloak your paid pages on gateway sites - but I think the increasing dominance of Google makes the return much less.

For most sites, the effort is no longer worth the risk.