quack - 2:29 pm on Jan 12, 2010 (gmt 0)

I originally cloaked my site to identify search bots so that database records would always sort the same way when they visit - they typically sort randomly. My thought was that by making the pages more 'static' to the bots, I would get deeper searches.

I also showed a simple menu stripping out JaveScript that's early in my code. I figured that by reducing the code, the pages could get searched deeper. I didn't change the content or structure of the menu.

Asking Google about this, I was told to absolutely not cloak under any circumstances - it's purely black hat. My feeling was that I was simply making things easier. I wasn't changing content.

I'd like to know what webmasters generally think. I knew cloaking was common and now ran across this forum. I got the feeling from Google that cloaking was a big risk and eventually would eventually land me in on SERP # one million.

?