Brett_Tabke - 7:33 pm on Mar 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

> Somebody is going to have a very sore backside

I wouldn't doubt there are several people polishing their resumes as we speak.

>for keywording their AdWords Support search?

Ya, that's why I thought it might be a 'test' system. Interesting 3rd level domain issues there with Robots.txt not being obeyed...hmmm

> downplay

We've pointed the finger at Yahoo for doing the same (last spring?).
We caught MSN doing it a year ago.
Altavista's seo help pages were cloaked in 99.
All the se's geo cloak.
All the major flash sites cloak.
All of Googles major sites from Ebay to Amazon cloak in one form or another (geo, language...etc)
All The major se's do stuff with xml with partners.
Inktomi used hand the core of the algo to their major pfi partners.
Ink partners used to "enhance" (aka: Optimize) feeds like crazy.
AdWords is delivered via geo targeting/cloaking.
AdSense are delivered via geo targeting/cloaking.
You really think that all those high ranking google subpages ruled the top of the index by merit for 5 years running?

If you do, let me tell about some land I got a few miles south of miami...

A sub story here is the shock and awe that a green segment of the seo community is expereincing. Playing "catch me if you can" is amusing, but makes no one any money and is a diversion at best. I see no old timers the least bit surprised by this. It is their (googles) se and they can do whatever they want with the index. If they want to say you shouldn't cloak and then turn around and cloak their own to the hilt - no big whop - that's business and it is the year 2005. No one ever said life was fair. /. response was a predicatable as the sun coming up. Why is anyone surprised at all? The surprise is that something like it hasn't happened before.

> downplay

Until I hear the other side of this thing...ya, I'll wait-n-see on that...