Freedom - 1:41 pm on Nov 30, 2005 (gmt 0)

Brett wrote back at the beginning of this thread on the question: "Could you require everyone but google to have a cookie to view the site?"

That exact question has been asked of the se's for years, and they say universally, that would be cloaking and against the major se guidelines and you would be subject to removal.

Google doesn't have the balls to ban WebmasterWorld. I say do it anyway.

WebmasterWorld is not some buy-my-viagra-home-mortgage-content-theft-lazy-ass-webmaster-made-for-adsense.com website.

A ban of a site with about 2 million pages would almost require a human review, and I think your troubles with rogue bots are being noted by more then 1 Google engineer (read Matt Cutts).

They'll understand what you are trying to do at this point and let your cloaking slide. WebmasterWorld by it's nature is a positive for Google by how it educates white hat seo and webmastering skills, - I think Google will side with you and realize what you are trying to do Brett.

I say go for it. Do what you have to do and let Google recognize it.

IMHO

Freedom