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The main point of my discussion is that I am seriously considering using cloaking on a site that I seem to be experiencing indexing problems with. Obviously my main concern is that I get found out and my domain is banned from the SEs. As long as I'm not spamming, I can't see an ethical problem with it, it strikes me that this is a way to make the web more creative for the end user, give the SE what it wants and give the user what he/she wants. I can see that abuse of cloaking is an issue, but why should I be penalised for trying to be more creative?
So, do I go down the cloaking route or do I just re-design my site, as a crappy text based one because that's what they require?
I see SEs at the top of the hierachy of web. In effect it's just like a company. SE's are the directors and the websites are the workers. As a director you can have the best ideas in the world, but if you don't have anyone to fulfil those ideas you don't have a company. Everything in life is a two way street, but in my view SE's have a 'like it or lump it' attitude. The day that search engines don't rule the web will be a happier on for all concerned.
Many people use cloaking for exactly the reasons you describe, flash, images, sites with very little text all do poorly in the SE game. While the focus of discussion for cloaking is usually around the ethical implications or search engines placement, once I began to cloak it was the design freedom that I most appreciated.
It may be worth noting though that sometimes simple text based pages is what is required and appreciated by the users of the site as well as the search engines. Whereas at other times this simply won't do, sometimes the design must accomodate elements that are not friendly to search engine ranking or just plain getting indexed, it all depends on the target audience, the function of the site and the web designer. In the latter case cloaking is a good choice, considering the alternative.
Generally the prettier site the slower the download. And thats just the start of the many compromises I make in web design every day.
Like whether to use DHTML which only works on some browsers and systems and looks great, or just use universally veiwable text. Whether to use Flash which looks great but decreases download time and provides problems for people who dont have it.
We have to compromise there as well as we have to compromise with Search Engines.
It's just a matter of being as smart as possible with compromise in an imperfect world!
In response to chiyo: What happens when broadband hits? are we still going to make the compromise ? There's the possibility that there are going to be different kinds of applications, what then ?
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In response to chiyo: What happens when broadband hits? are we still going to make the compromise ? There's the possibility that there are going to be different kinds of applications, what then ?
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Not sure what you mean by when broadband hits?? As you say you have had a lot of time designing so you would have worked through many new technonologies in that time and seen access speed increase fast.
We have also seen Search Engines go through major improvements in technology - from the time when they all just indexed text to now when they take into account inbound links, (and even outbound), themes, and more sophisticated text analysis.
So Se's do and will keep up with the new technologies though at the moment keeping solvent seems more of a concern.
They only provide an indexing service, they are not a free services or W3Consortium thing. Whether we decide to use our marketing $ to work with them or to use PPC, online or off line advertising, reciprocal links and in which proportion is up to the individual.
Guess the upshot is that SE's are only likely to improve their capability for indexing if there is a cost effectiveness return on the quality of their index which keeps people coming back and reading their ads. What we beleive or want as website owners is only one (and possibly small) consideration.
AV also gives advice in their Webmaster help pages on providing alternate pages for Flash pages and heavily tabled and script driven pages.
Iid be careful though regarding people's uptake of new technology. if you are marketing to tecchies and internet experienced people they may have a flash bundled browser, but many, expecially outside US, dont have the latest browsers, nor the epuipmeny and access speed to make Flash functional.
I for one dont have Flash installed on my main working machine.
Making an alternate page or cloaking carefully as you say sounds good to me.
Not sure the exact URL for the AV reference sorry.
ADSL or DSL. Clients are gonna want big and better sites, what happens then. Do I have to build different sites for every denominator eventuality that enters my site? Oh you don't have flash, you go here, oh you have an old browser, you go here, oh you only have a 28.8 connection here's the text version. Has anyone ever heard about budgets ? I don't think clients are gonna swallow 5 different versions of one site just to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
If you want to appeal to the lowest common denominator you only need one site! The problem arises with clients who want flashy sites just becuase the technology is there... only then you have to decide to cater to just the hi tech broswers or provide other alternatives. It is hardly the SE's fault!
Clients sometimes need educating on what site design would be most sucessful for their purposes - getting many hits, having a snazzy and impresssive look etc... They usually do not know the problems with using cutting edge technqiues and up to you to educate them.
If i was looking for the best reach I would encourage the client to use low band width methods. Even though broadband is becoming available, it will not affect dial up or users in remote areas or countries. If I had a business that didn't need those people yes, I would agree with the client to make it look great using flash etc, but talk to him/her about the implications for low SE placement and what you can do to get over this problem - as i was suggesting
I see from your site now however that you specialise in video and great looking sites. So that option may not be available as i guess people that come to you are looking for appearance over anthing else. So sorry that most of what ive said is not useful for you (I should have looked at your site first!)
The only thing I would suggest is as i said have alternate pages or look to promote in other vehicles rather than search engines. Finaly there are also ways to maximise your expousure in SE's given your graphic design emphasis though you have that disadvantage - including cloaking as you say
Two comments:
First, the search engines are mostly struggling to stay alive. It's important to appreciate that they have to make major compromises, just as designers must. We simply are using a very new and immature technology.
Second, as internet users become more experienced, they seem to have less appreciation for showiness, especially when it comes at the expense of efficiency.
Often, it's the client or the designer, not their audience, who wants the glitz. And just as often, the client has yet to step out of a print mind-set. My clients often talk about their websites as if they were as linear as a TV ad.
Certainly there is nothing inherently "wrong" with cloaking even though it can be abused. I think of it as "closed captioning" for the search engines. They're just a little bit deaf, you know?
The need for cloaking may vanish down the road in the face of new search engnine technology. In fact, I hope it does, just as I hope the browser compatibility issues will evaporate over time.
You really have to understand the whole process, try to place yourself in the SEs' positions. I think there are some really great ideas here.
For now, it is a comprimise. In fact, it may not ever get better, maybe even worse.
I understand the need to blow off steam, but I don't think you're going to accomplish a lot. I think, just decide what is going to work best for you and move on, until something changes so you can change what you havce to do.
Help is always here if you need it :-)
More often than not, they would find themselves in a position of trying to explain that they won't be able to bring as much traffic as they thought because their new site isn't search engine friendly.
To correct this problem, I set up a system that requires the design team to submit a request for a visibility audit to marketing for any new client before they write a single line of code. This audit is an extremley detailed keyword research report. Identifiying all terms, checking search activity and competing pages, etc.
By the time we're done, I can give them a very clear picture of what kind of potential traffic search engines may or may not be able to produce. If there is a great deal of potential SE traffic, the data is presented to the client so that they can decide how they want to procede. Sometimes they are willing to make modifications to their wish lists, and other times they decide to spend more money to incorporate some type of workaround. (usually IP delivery)
The best part about the whole approach is quite often the data we collect will show that there really isn't much search activity for a particular client's keyword set so SEO isn't a top priority.
Other times, their particular keywords may be highly competitive, but limited. A situation that can easily be handled by a directory/ppc only approach.
In cases like these, the design team gets a green light to basically build what they want. They get enough projects that don't restrict them creatively and the clients get to find out what the true costs of all the bells and whistles may be BEFORE the write the check.
Regarding your specific situation, if the potential traffic is really worth the effort, than by all means try IP delivery. If you haven't been able to get indexed, than the threat of getting banned doesn't really exist. Plus, as long as you don't attempt to mislead, you won't get banned.
Cloaking is no longer a dirty trick used by porn sites. It is a fairly common workaround that is now used by a large chunk of Fortune 500 companies.
Thank you,
2Much
Basically, they way we approach it is that we go after the core of a clients keyword set with directory listings. If your main phrase is popular, your only chance of ranking for it is to write and submit a directory listing that covers it.
For example, if you search on MSN for the term "chicken recipes" MSN will return close to 400 matches. All of these listings come from looksmart. There is no way you can cloak your way to the top for that phrase. The best you could do is #401.
However, for other terms in your chicken recipe keyword set like "chicken enchilada recipes" MSN has very few directory matches. (in this case 7)
These are the types of terms you would go after with cloaking. The certainly don't produce the same volume of traffic on an individual basis as "chicken recipes" but converting all those individual recipes in your database into stactic versions and then delivering them via IP can add up to thousands of visitors.
